Author Topic: Custom reporting (Read 2914 times)

pdunn · August 30, 2011, 02:39:55 am

My first post!
I have been working through CiviCRM and its useability from an administrator point of view (no developer skills). The barrier I have come to is the ability to quickly and simple generate custom reports. I am ok with the filtering / modifying filters from existing reports, but they doesn't seem a way for a site administrator to be able to create many and varied report without using complex php/sql skills? Am I missing something?
In the third sector funders often ask for ad-hock reports so how could administrators quickly produce reports e.g number of volunteers stared between two date, with a specific medical condition (custom data set) by age order?

Erik Hommel · August 30, 2011, 09:50:44 am

Congrats on your first post, hopefully loads will follow :-)
There are several things you can do to create reports, depending on how complex you want them to be. You can certainly use profiles to create reports (check http://en.flossmanuals.net/civicrm/ch012_profiles/) or use advanced search to create smart groups? (check http://en.flossmanuals.net/civicrm/ch017_tags-and-groups/). But if this does not meet your needs and you need more customized reports, yes you would need some php and mysql skills to create custom reports. The level of skills required depends on how difficult your report requirements are.
Alternatively, you can use a open source data reporting toolset (jaspersoft, pentaho) and link it to the CiviCRM database. But then you need a basic idea of what data sits in which table.

pdunn · August 31, 2011, 01:05:34 am

Thanks Erik
The data reporting tools look like a good starting point. Once you can map what data is in what tables then it maybe easier for administrators to generate future reports. Do you know if tools like Crystal Reports connects to civi database?
PS liked your work on the interface demo at civicon.

Erik Hommel · August 31, 2011, 01:33:57 am

I was fun to present at CiviCon

I am not sure about Crystal Reports, you would need to check if it connects to a MySQL database....found one URL for you: http://www.eakes.org/80/connecting-to-mysql-with-crystal-reports-xi/...sure to be more. I have once played with Pentaho myself, which worked quite nicely. The advantage of using the data reporting tools is that you can potentially report from more databases. Let me know how you get on!

pdunn · August 31, 2011, 03:53:31 am

Thanks Erik, if I ever get things working will let you know!

Dennis Gray · September 07, 2011, 07:14:42 pm

Crystal Reports can easily connect to MySQL databases through ODBC. This would require you to make the database available over the nextwork, which may be a security issue. I'd rather keep the reporting framework on the server where CiviCRM sits.

My question is, using CiviReports, is it possible for a developer to create custom templates? I've poked around through the documentation but find no guidelines. I admit, because of time constraints, I have not made a thorough search but if such a capability exists, I would hope it would be well documented.

Erik Hommel · September 08, 2011, 12:08:37 am

There is a possibiltiy to create custom reports, it is documented on the wiki and in the floss manual. Give me a shout if you need the URL's.

Dennis Gray · September 08, 2011, 12:46:17 am

The URLs would be a big help. I have looked in the Floss manual and it just referred me to the developers section of the wiki and there I didn't find anything that tells me how to create a custom template for CiviReport.

Thanks

Update: I did a little more searching and found http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC33/CiviReport+structure+and+customization. This looks to be of some help

Erik Hommel · September 09, 2011, 02:45:06 am

You might want to try this one : http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMDOC40/CiviReport+structure+and+customization (if you use CiviCRM 3.4). For the Floss Manual : http://en.flossmanuals.net/civicrm-developer-guide/reports/

And what do you mean exactly with a custom template? What is the use case? Using CiviReport I can create customized reports or basic reports that others can use to change what they want. Is that what you are after?

Dennis Gray · September 09, 2011, 03:00:28 am

I don't think the templates that are delivered will cover all the use cases we may have now or in the future. We are currently on CiviCRM 1.9 and all of our reporting has been done by a volunteer using python scripts with mysql.

I'll try to get the spec for a recent report to see if it can be done with one of the canned templates. I believe we will have requirements that cannot be met by the existing templates so we would have to customize them.

The first link you gave is almost the same information as the one I put in my last reply.

Erik Hommel · September 09, 2011, 03:50:03 am

I would strongly recommend you upgrade to a more recent version of CiviCRM, and then using the CiviCRM Custom Reports set up to create customizations so they are easiest to upgrade to new versions.

Dennis Gray · September 09, 2011, 05:50:33 am

We are in the process of upgrading. That is why I am asking these questions.

Erik Hommel · September 13, 2011, 02:51:58 am

Good stuff

. You might have to find someone internally that can dive into the details of CiviReport so the existing python scripts can be copied (if required) into the CiviReport standard, or hire someone to do that for you?

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Author Topic: Custom reporting (Read 2914 times)

pdunn

Custom reporting

Erik Hommel

Re: Custom reporting

pdunn

Re: Custom reporting

Erik Hommel

Re: Custom reporting

pdunn

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Dennis Gray

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Erik Hommel

Re: Custom reporting

Dennis Gray

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Erik Hommel

Re: Custom reporting

Dennis Gray

Re: Custom reporting

Erik Hommel

Re: Custom reporting

Dennis Gray

Re: Custom reporting

Erik Hommel

Re: Custom reporting