Alfresco Business Reporting (Custom Reports Designer)

Welcome to active management. No more educated guesses. Real data in easy-to-read graphic charts are crucial when planning your company’s next steps.

The Alfresco Business Reporting addon was developed by Skytizens to assist with business analysis. Instead of relying on hunches or premonitions which can vary person-to-person, this module helps managers to stick to hard facts. Each site and repository within the Alfresco system has been harvested for data, tallied into a complex chart, and then converted into graphic charts so that managers can view the trends of sites they are responsible for. The module helps managers to assess their teams’ activities. This module turns educated guesses into clear-cut decisions.

Not only does this module make business reports easy to read, it also makes it incredibly easy to extract specific data using the multiple filter parameters. Managers can drill-down until they have extremely precise information—by the hour per user reporting if necessary. Stick to the facts with this powerful Alfresco addon.

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What is Alfresco Business Reporting?

The Alfresco Business Reporting addon for Alfresco is a way to generate reports on almost any action performed in the Alfresco system. Data retrieval and pulling reports is an integral part of strategic business planning. Alfresco Business Reporting harvests system data and produces a range of formatted periodic reports that combine text, data, graphs, charts, and dynamical filters. Reports generated in this module include workflow reports, site usage, user activity, and repository breakdowns with dynamic parameters for detailed analysis.

Why is Alfresco Business Reporting so important?

  • Active management – keep track of business reports to track progress, assess activity, control waste, and reach goals
  • Increased revenue – gain insight into trends and plan effective strategies to increase profits
  • Align daily work with KPIs – reports are designed for watching Key Performance Indicators
  • Provide solid evidence – business reports show clear facts and statistics that drive business decisions such as expanding departments or cutting programs; reports help a business to see all angles of an issue and negotiate solutions that avoid eliminating staff

The Benefits of Alfresco Business Reporting

Skytizens has developed the Alfresco Business Reporting addon in Alfresco so that companies have factual evidence to conduct analysis on their business strategies and inform quality solutions. Reports are important for managers to track their department goals and watch employee workflow. Activity reports help employees, investors, and clients get a complete picture of your business. Reports can also play a vital role in guiding marketing strategy. A company can hand over accurate business reports to an outside marketing agency and receive precise suggestions in return. A number of standard reports are pre-programmed in the system. Companies can also design custom reports to pull for specific projects. Above all, these graphic reports are easy to read and filterable by multiple dynamic drill-downs—ensuring exact data capture.

How Does It Work?

With the Alfresco Business Reporting addon, users can view dynamic graphic reports in the Alfresco system whenever required.

The Alfresco Business Reporting module is available to dispatch two types of report:

  • Standard report – a number of common business reports with graphic output and multiple dynamic drill-downs per report to capture very specific information
  • Custom reports – request custom reports from Skytizens (limited) or companies can receive specific training to design reports on their own (unlimited)

To begin, administrators must setup criteria to inform what details to harvest from the system database.

Next, the administrators decide the mix of reports they want to include in the regular reporting cycle. For the custom reports mentioned above, the parameters of the report are outlined externally using report development software. Then the blueprints for the report are uploaded to Alfresco and the report becomes part of the regular mix.

This assortment of reports can be run on regular time intervals: hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly.

When viewing, all reports have a number of filter options to capture precise data and to view in various time intervals. These filter options are represented by drop-down menus and links embedded into the chart graphics.

Main Features

Alfresco Business Reporting setup – Users must set up parameters so the system knows how frequently to harvest data for each report.

    1. Low Frequency Data Harvest – tallies data on a daily basis after business hours
    2. High Frequency Data Harvest – tallies data on an hourly basis every day
    3. Immediate Data Harvest – members of a designated group can harvest up-to-the-minute data on command and generate a report

Admin Tools (Business Report Log) – Database report statuses can be reviewed under Admin tools in the Alfresco Business Reporting part of the system.

    1. Table – Name of the report
    2. Last run – timestamp of clock and date of the last data harvest
    3. Status – displays Done or In Process of generating next report
    4. Rows – shows how many rows of data will appear in the table version of this report
    5. Latest – this part of the table is for version control—latest # should be equal to # of rows
    6. Non-latest – if the version used for data harvest is listed here, it means an older version as used
    7. Workspace – # of rows will appear here if the data in the report is active
    8. Archive – # of rows will appear here if the data used to generate the report is in trashcan

Dynamic Graphic Reports – administrators and members of the designated group can see the Reports menu displayed on the main Alfresco toolbar. The below reports are available for viewing.

  • Common Global Report – system-wide data
    1. User connections: Log in / login failed
    2. Trashcan size: total size of trashcan
  • Site reports – Displays data from all sites in the system AND has filter parameters to check by site or by department as needed
    1. File number – filter by location and site
    2. Repository size – filter by location and site
    3. Content size – a report about the size of files kept in certain locations in the system; filter by location, file size, and site
    4. Overall use – a report about the number of system operations, including creation of files, opening files, modification of files, deleting files; filter by location, file size
    5. User connections – filter by site and username
  • Repository reports – Displays data from the system repository which stores all system files
    1. File number – the amount of all files in the repository
    2. Repository size – how the size of the repository has grown or shrunk over time
    3. Content size – File size divided into Average size, Maximum size, and Total size; filter by site
    4. Overall use – a report about the number of system operations, including creation of files, opening files, modification of files, deleting files; filter by location, file size
  • Site-based Report – Each site has its own reports available to the Site Manager. These reports are the same reports that appear to the Administrator. These reports are accessible in the ‘Skytizens Report’ menu
    1. File number – filter by location and site
    2. Repository size – filter by location and site
    3. Content size – a report about the size of files kept in certain locations in the system; filter by location, file size, and site
    4. Overall use – a report about the number of system operations, including creation of files, opening files, modification of files, deleting files; filter by location, file size
    5. User connections – filter by site and username
  • Common Custom Reports – typical requests
    1. Active Workflow Report – most popular request is a regular report showing details of workflow activity within the BPM system in Alfresco; this report’s graphics are located in the Reporting folder in the system Repository
  • “Top Ten” List – For at-a-glance information about extremes, each chart has a Top 10 or Top 5 for the category. This can be a list of the top users, the largest files, the longest-run sites, or any other information that helps managers to see the most extreme examples of the data harvest. This information is often used anecdotally. It can also be used for training purposes to catch staff weaknesses.

George from the reception desk is listed in the Business Reporting Top 5 Users for failed login attempts. George’s manager can safely assume that this staff member needs a quick review of how to login correctly to the system. Catching small glitches like this saves the company time and money. It also saves George’s pride and the frustration of further tech problems—such as being locked out for security reason.Visual

  • Graphics – Users can choose to display the report by various graphical options. The X and Y axes of each graphic chart can be adjusted by increments to show a specific duration of time.
    1. Column chart
    2. Bar chart
    3. Line chart
    4. Area chart
    5. Table
  • Export – Reports are available to export to Microsoft Excel.

Report Designer – Custom reports are generated regularly will appear in the Repository under Reporting. Using an outside application that harvests data from the Alfresco system, companies can either request report designs from Skytizens (limited) or request training on how to design their own reports (unlimited).

  1. Custom Reports Folder – Organized by the frequency at which the custom reports are generated (i.e. Repository > Reporting > Global/Site > Daily/Hourly/Weekly/Monthly)
  2. Custom report properties –  special properties for setting reports
    • Execution Enabled – toggle ON/OFF
      • Execution Frequency: Daily/Hourly/Weekly/Monthly
    • Output Format – PDF/EXCEL/CSV
    • Output Version – toggle ON to save new reports by replacing the old file, toggle OFF to create new file for each saved version
    • Parameter Substitution – Allows users to make edits to report parameters in the future by sending parameter information between Alfresco and the report generation program. Once variables are set in the report, users can set the variables in Alfresco by field.
    • Target Path – dynamic folder path to store custom report e.g.{gyyyy}/{mmmm}/{dd}
    • Target Folder – root folder

Permissions Control – Access to the Alfresco Business Reporting module is managed by Group.

  1. Group Access – Permission to use the feature is given by the client’s administrator by designating members of a group. Only members of the group can see the Report menu on their main menu toolbar.

Conclusions

Welcome to active management. No more educated guesses. Real data in easy-to-read graphic charts are crucial when planning your company’s next steps.

The Alfresco Business Reporting addon was developed by Skytizens to assist with business analysis. Instead of relying on hunches or premonitions which can vary person-to-person, this module helps managers to stick to hard facts. Each site and repository within the Alfresco system has been harvested for data, tallied into a complex chart, and then converted into graphic charts so that managers can view the trends of sites they are responsible for. The module helps managers to assess their teams’ activities. This module turns educated guesses into clear-cut decisions.

Not only does this module make business reports easy to read, it also makes it incredibly easy to extract specific data using the multiple filter parameters. Managers can drill-down until they have extremely precise information—by the hour per user reporting if necessary. Stick to the facts with this powerful Alfresco addon.

 

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