Method Community

Hello, just signed up over the weekend and started playing around with the sytstem to fit my needs. I have run into some questions/issues with the report designer and was wondering if I could get some help.

1) Is there a support documentation or training manual for the designer showing the fields and how they relate to the database? I search the forum and only found a post from back in 2009 saying one was coming out soon.

2) I created a new report "maitenance ticket" and am having some trouble with some of the fields. I have in the report Activity.Name, Activity.phonenumber, and Activity.mobilephone that show no information, even though there is information in the contact record? Is there another field I should be using?

3) As a test I put multiple items on a work order, how do i get those to show on the report? I added the field Activity.jobitems.item once and that did not do it. So I added it a couple of times and that didn't do it either. Like I said earlier a report showing what fields line up with what parts of the program would be great and a little description too.

4) Is there a way to schedule without the time? We do a lot of sequence based scheduling and having to schedule work orders with the time is kind of a pain. Or if I have to schedule with the time, is there a way that it will not print on the work orders as this could lead to customer service issues? 

5) Can a line break be added in an item description? Or can an item have sub assemblies that can print with the item on a work order?

Thats it for now? Tried to find as much information online as I could and I apologize if these questions have been answered already before as I could not find the answers in my searches.

KC

Hi khorner, 

We have a great selection of webinars for our Method Report Designer available at your disposal. I would first view the webinar titled Introduction to Designing Report: Level 1 here, Introduction to Designing Report: Level 2 here, and Tips and Tricks for Designing Report here. 

If you have any additional questions after first watching those webinars, don’t hesitate to post a comment on this forum and I will reply with a response promptly. 

I hope that this helps.   

Hi khorner, 

Just to add to my response, you can watch all of our webinars here and also post additional questions here which will be responded promptly. 

I hope that this helps. 

Ronen

Hi khorner,

I just wanted to give you an update that I am currently in the process of responding to each of your individual question and will have a response shortly.

Ronen

Hi khorner, 

The following are my responses to your questions:

khorner:

2) I created a new report "maitenance ticket" and am having some trouble with some of the fields. I have in the report Activity.Name, Activity.phonenumber, and Activity.mobilephone that show no information, even though there is information in the contact record? Is there another field I should be using?

The field names that you want to choose are Activity.ContactName, Activity.ContactPhone, and Acticity.ContactMobile. If you are basing your report on the Work Order report that we have available called FieldService_WorkOrder, then the above fields represent the customers information that you have in Field Services.

khorner:

3) As a test I put multiple items on a work order, how do i get those to show on the report? I added the field Activity.jobitems.item once and that did not do it. So I added it a couple of times and that didn't do it either. Like I said earlier a report showing what fields line up with what parts of the program would be great and a little description too.

We have a report which I recommend you start off with and it is called FieldService_WorkOrder. In regards to the field that you are referring to, the field that you are looking for is ActivityJobItems.Activity.Item.

khorner:

4) Is there a way to schedule without the time? We do a lot of sequence based scheduling and having to schedule work orders with the time is kind of a pain. Or if I have to schedule with the time, is there a way that it will not print on the work orders as this could lead to customer service issues? 

When you create the work order, if you are referring to the information in the Date Start and Date End which includes the date and the time for those respective dates, the time in Method can’t be removed.

In the report designer though, you can make changes to properties of the field. I recommend thought that you first make a copy of the report before making any changes in the fields.  In the FieldService_WorkOrder report, just under theActivity.Comments field, there are two fields called Activity.DueDateStart and Activity.DueDateEnd. When you select the first field, you will see a small boxed arrow pointing to the right on the top right hand side of the field. When you click on that, you will have the option of changing the format of the output.

If you click on the … button in the  “Format String” section, you will see the category DateTime where you will then need to select the choice of dd/MM/yyyy or a similar standard date choice for formatting purposes but without the time formatting such ash:mm tt. You can then attach this report to the Print Work Order button through actions when you are making customizations if you are going to be making these changes to the new report.

khorner:

5) Can a line break be added in an item description? Or can an item have sub assemblies that can print with the item on a work order?

If you look at the FieldService_WorkOrder report, if you right click in white space area within the DetailReport – “Activity.Activity.JobItems.Activity”, you can select Insert Detail Report  which will be unbound where you can add the other items from the work order.  

I hope that this helps. 

Ronen

Hey Ronen,

Thanks for your detailed answers. For me it was much easier to start from scratch as the report I wanted to create was very different (as far as the look and feel) than the WorkOrder report.

I was incorrect when I gave you the field names that I had in the report. I had the ones you listed and still no contact information shows up and I changed the items line to the one you specified and it still only shows the first part of the line on a work order. The field is set to auto fill, but like I said only the first line of five lines in that item shows up and no the other two items on the work order do not. If you could look at my report as maybe I am overlooking something.

The date suggestion worked great!

I am guessing, since you didnt address it, that you do not offer a guide for the report designer? I am very fluent in Crystal Reports and really just need a table/field listing.

Thanks again, KC

Hi khorner, 

In regards to the first question in the earlier post, we only have those webinars available to give you an overview of the designer. In regards to documentation on which field belong to which table, we don't have any documentation for that. The only way to actually figure out which field belongs to which table, is to create a new report and choosing a master table and learning which fields that table has. 

In addition to that, you only need to only add this field [ActivityJobItems.Activity.Item] once as you can see below in the Detail header in the current FieldService_WorkOrder report within the report designer. 

My recommendation is to add a test work order in field services for customer Test, and add some items. When you open up the above mentioned report in the report designer, click on "Preview" instead of the "Designer", and you will see that in the sample report that is generated the multiple items are there in the detail section. 

I hope that this helps. 

Ronen

 I looked at the detail header in fieldservice_workorder and it does not contain anything for the contact information, only company name. I added the fields for the contact information to a test report and nothing shows. i have data in those fields in my customer list. Any ideas?

Hi khorner, 

The reason that you are not able to see the contact information on the work order is because the contact information is not added directly to the new work order. 

The best way to make sure that the information gets passed on to the report is by creating a linked field in the activity table and to make sure that the Contacts dropdown is added to the copy of the new work order screen.

Once you have this field linked in the table, you can add the "Contacs" field in the Field List listing in the report designer to the report and this should add the Contact information from the new work order screen. 

I hope that this helps. 

Ronen

Method_Ronen:

Hi khorner, 

The reason that you are not able to see the contact information on the work order is because the contact information is not added directly to the new work order. 

The best way to make sure that the information gets passed on to the report is by creating a linked field in the activity table and to make sure that the Contacts dropdown is added to the copy of the new work order screen.

Once you have this field linked in the table, you can add the "Contacs" field in the Field List listing in the report designer to the report and this should add the Contact information from the new work order screen. 

I hope that this helps. 

Ronen

 Okay, I will try that, but can you tell me what these fields are used for as one would expect them to contain the contact information?

activity.contactsname

activity.contactsphone

activity.contacts

activity.contact

activity.contactphoneNumber

Not having documentation on your fields and/or report designer does not really create an open and customizable environment. I would like to use this software, but not if I have to have a report designed by Method everytime b/c you have not provided your users with the appropriate tools to allow them to work within the software.

Hi khorner, 

The Activity.ContactsName, Activity.ContactsPhone, Activity.Contacts, and Activity.ContactPhoneNumber, are related to fields that are added directly on the work order screen itself. 

The Activity.Contacts field is used when you add a Contacts dropdown field onto the new work order which is related to a linked field in the activity table. You will have to add this field to the copy of the new work order screen in order to be able to use this field. 

In terms of documentation for the Report Designer Fields and their relationship to areas in Method, we currently don't have any documentation available, but will have documentation in the future.

The best way to determine which Report Designer Field belongs to which specific field in a Method screen is to open up existing reports in the report designer where the actual field name represents a field on the screen in Method. 

If you determine that the field is not outputting any data when you are Previewing the report, the reason is that the field doesn't currently exist on the current screen and needs to be added. As an example, for the Activity.ContactsName, Activity.ContactsPhone, Activity.Contacts, and Activity.ContactPhoneNumber, you need to add the actual ContactName, ContactsPhone, Contacts dropdown, and ContactPhoneNumber field on the actual screen. 

I hope that this helps. 

Ronen