Method Community

Trying to get my head around creating reports. I understand the basic principle of creating reports but am trying to do something a little more complicated not explained in your videos.

This is what I am trying to do....

I need a report that shows all the contacts that have activities assigned to them with a certain string value in the comments field of the activity.

Is this even possible to do?

thanks for your help,

Hey Ben B,

You can easily do this using the Generate Report action. First create your template using the Report Designer and make it pleasing to the eye. Then customize the screen you want to generate the report from and you can set the filter criteria within the Generate Report action. Below is my example which shows all activities with the word "Congratulate" in the Comments field.

If you want to have a more advanced filter criteria you can type up an SQL script and assign it to an Action Result. Then you can utilize it by selecting the Use Advanced Script option. Hope this helps!

- Ashur

thanks for the response.

Issue is I need to pull fields from the contact table as well, not just the activity table. I know the tables are linked but I am just unsure how to create a report using contact and activity tables.

thanks

In that case you should create your template based off the Contacts table and select Activity.ContactsRef as a Detail Table. You'll then be able to utilize fields in both the Contacts and Activity tables.

*Note: In order to utilize the Activity fields correctly you'll need to expand the Contacts table data set on the right side of the screen, then expand the Activity.Contacts table; these are the Activity fields you'll need to use.

- Ashur

ok I created my report but now when I try and filter using the comments field in activity I get the following error.

Error^Action Sequence Order:1^ERROR:You have specified that a filter should be applied to your report, however no filter criteria was sent. For security purposes, this report cannot be shown.

This message is basically saying that the filter criteria in the Generate Report action needs to be filled out correctly.

Can you provide a screenshot of the Generate Report action properties, it's the screen that posted in one of my responses above. You can use a free picture upload website such as imgur.com, or just search for another site using your favourite search engine.

- Ashur

http://www.flickr.com/photos/46155768@N00/9034690009/

for some reason cant get picture to show on here so click above link

Ensure you're not currently editing any tables or screens. Once that's confirmed you should regenerate the tables associated with your report. To regenerate a table go to Customize > Tables/Fields > click on the table name, e.g. Activity, then click Finished Editing Fields. Rinse and repeat for the other tables, if applicable, then try generating the report again. Let me know what happens.

- Ashur

did all the above and still get same error.

I have just created a grid with an export to excel button for now that does what I need, I also linked the fields in contacts I needed into activity so I could display them, but would still like to understand how to create these reports when using linked tables as I will be utilizing them a lot more in the future. 

thanks

Strange, I'm experiencing this as well. I may have to log a ticket for this, but in the mean time there's another way to do this in order to get it working for you. You'll first need to add the fields form the Contacts table (that you want to show in the report) as linked fields in the Activity table. Then create a new report based off the Activity table, or edit your existing report and click File > Save As to change the table info. Once you're done you'll be able to edit the Generate Report action in Method to filter using the Activity Comments field. Remember, you can only filter using the Activity fields since that's the table which the tempate was based off of.

- Ashur