Report Sections

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The window associated with a report organizes options into sections. Different reports have different sections, but here are the most common:

Grouping, Sorting or Grouping and Sorting: Lets you control how the report is organized. For example, suppose you're printing information about work orders. The report will be divided into sections, with each section containing work orders that have something in common. For example, each section might refer to a different location (which gives you a location-by-location breakdown of the work you do). As another example, you might group your information by unit, so that you get a unit-by-unit breakdown of your work orders.

Within each section, you can sort by other criteria. With work orders, for example, you can sort by "Start Date" (the date each job began), by "End Date" (the date each job ended), by work order number, and so on.

This section also lets you specify whether the sort should be Ascending (from lowest values to highest ones) or Descending (highest to lowest).

Grouping options break a report into sections. Sorting options sort information within each section.

Filtering: A report filter lets you select which records you do and don't want in the report. For example, you might want to restrict a report on units to units in a particular category or range of unit IDs. Filter sections let you specify such restrictions. For more on how report filters work, see Report Filters.

Advanced: Lets you specify a title for the report when it is printed, and the fonts to be used. Depending on the type of report, this section may also let you specify additional options.

Preview: Displays a preview of the report—a version of what you'd see if you actually printed the report on paper. Preparing such a preview may take some time, since MainBoss may have to process a lot of data; therefore, you might have to wait while MainBoss creates the preview.

The Preview section has buttons that let you specify which printer you want to use, the size of page margins, and other printing details. Another button lets you export data from the report (e.g. to Microsoft Excel). Finally, the Preview section has a button that will actually print the report.

For more details on any of the standard buttons in a print window, see Report Controls.

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