Report Management in OnPing

In recent months, the report management system in OnPing has undergone a drastic overhaul. We want OnPing to be a source of freedom for users, but creating reports often becomes a tedious mind numbing task. To improve the OnPing experience, we’re introducing several new features including Report Preview and By Request reports, as well as updating Automated Reporting and cleaning up the terminology around report creation in OnPing. We believe this will reduce the time spent creating reports — Something we know everyone will be as excited about as we are.

Report Creator

To manage reports, we have to first create some reports! Report Creator is the primary reporting tool in OnPing. It is a pre-configured widget that can be added to panels in the user dashboard. RC can, conveniently, access any data streams the user is authorized for regardless of the panel it is placed on, turning the focus of dashboard design towards where reports should be located rather than where they must be located.

Begin using RC by adding the widget to a desired panel. To create a report, the following inputs are required:

1.      Report Title

2.      Email Recipients

3.      Start Date

4.      End Date

5.      Parameters for the report. Make sure to CONFIRM parameters before creating a report.  

Report Preview

When this information is filled out, a preview of the report will be generated below the Report Creator. The preview will show a selected number of lines (the default is 10) of the report.

 Use this new feature to confirm data is appearing as desired! The preview will show all the selected parameters, and it is a great way to see if the step intervals are configured correctly for a data set. No longer does a report need to be fully run only to discover necessary information is missing or formatted poorly.

We are excited to introduce this feature as a way to alleviate the potential frustration involved in report management. A lot of time goes into tweaking steps, selecting parameters, and getting things just right for a report — Report Preview will help ensure information looks clean the first time around.

Automated Reporting

In the RC widget, a box labeled “Automated” will appear beneath the “Report Type” label. Clicking the box opens a ‘Scheduling’ section. Here, the user chooses the frequency interval for the report. This option will determine how often the report will be generated in the future.

Automated Reporting is a key aspect to OnPing Report Management. With Automated Reporting, putting time in to designing good reports upfront is rewarded with less time spent fiddling with tedious report details later on.

By Request

Previously, Automated Reports could be run as Daily, Weekly, or Monthly through the scheduling block. Now, we are excited to present reporting By Request (BR)! BR reports allow the user to save a format for a report and use that format at a later time. Some reports need to be pulled with semi-regular frequency but not at regular intervals – BR reports are the OnPing solution to this functional need.

 For a BR report, select the option in the Scheduling block. Select and save the desired parameters as usual. Click Create Report. The format for the BR will be saved and is now available whenever it is needed moving forward.

Finding Automated Reports

BR Reports are not run when they are created! Instead, they are saved under the “My Automated Reports” panel. BR reports must be run in this panel. They will not appear under the “View Reports” tab in the RC.

Automated Reports Compatible with Report Preview

 Although Automated reports do not run-on creation, a preview of the report format is available immediately through the Report Preview feature mentioned above. Once a valid report has been created (refer to the instructions provided above) the preview will populate itself at the bottom of the RC widget.

Conclusion

Thank you for checking out this update of report management in OnPing. We are excited about all the progress that has occurred with the OnPing report management system, and we believe features like Report Preview, Automated Reporting, and By Request reporting will have a huge impact on how it feels to administrate reporting with OnPing.

Contact Us

We always want to know how feature updates impact you! Contact us with any questions or feedback about new reporting features at info@onping.net.