[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] EvergreenIntConf 2010 - Reports round-table

[George Tuttle]

How does one rate reports objectively?

The surest way to evaluate a report is creating a 2nd report that tests the
data against a known entity. You can also flip the process and create the
test report, first. For example, a test report for various hold requests
lists might test on a specific range of holds ID numbers, like Hold ID#:
20001-20200. By cloning and adding display categories, one would see which
display categories break the report -- if the report displays less or more
than the 200 requested holds, it is broken. You continue to clone and test
until you determine which display categories work and which don't.

The quickest way to evaluate a report is through consensus. Through
consensus, one can often forego the testing process -- instead, you say, if
the report is good enough for that library consortium, it is good enough for
my library consortium. 

Other thoughts on how to rate reports?

George 

-----Original Message-----
From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org
[mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of
Anoop Atre
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2010 5:08 PM
To: Evergreen Discussion Group
Subject: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] EvergreenIntConf 2010 - Reports round-table

Apologies for being some what last minute. These are some reports
related ideas/questions/wishlist which were compiled from the mailing list.

Please look through and mail back if you would like to add more points
to the discussion during the reports round-table. If you can't make it
this year to the conference send us your ideas, requests, solutions,
etc. we plan to do a write up and post it on the website. Here is the
example list of base reports that George Tuttle came up with as a
starting point [
http://list.georgialibraries.org/pipermail/open-ils-general/2010-March/00258
9.html
]. We will discuss this so if you think other canned reports (academic
library needs?) need to be included (or his reports need to be modified)
mail back or make a note to bring it up at the discussion.

Discussion Points:

 - Sharing reports/repository for community. Rating good reports,
comments about reports, etc. similar to Firefox extensions.

 - Create canned reports - what reports should be canned? Generic list?

 - Community process to decide which templates to add into base install.

 - Pre-scheduled reports that run automatically and where the end-user
merely accesses the data, like the circulation reports for individual
months. In this type of report, the results are canned and can't be
altered(?)

 - Documentation on Data Sources for creating reports.

 - View SQL generated by report builder and an option to paste & use SQL
into the reporter.

 - Show report title, date and description on top of output so it can be
just printed.

 - Editing reports without creating a clone.

 - Show the settings entered when scheduling a report (the exact date
ranges, circ modifiers, etc.) that were entered when creating a report -
yes, we can put that in the description field, but people forget.

 - Long numeric barcodes are currently displayed in scientific notation
which needs to be fixed.

 - Bookmark regularly used templates.

 - Right click option to reduce number of clicks (applies across the client)

 - UI for exporting/importing report templates across Evergreen
installations (and have it catch whether a report depends on a reporter
extension which may not exist in the importing installation).  Later, it
may even be desirable to have the UI tap directly into a community
repository of such reports.

 - See reports be able to directly populate copy and/or record buckets
(going in the other direction is possible now, but could probably be
made easier).

 - Configure a run-time limit for reports (for example, if a report runs
for over an hour, automatically kill it).

 - Sponsoring/Co-sponsoring development

 - Plan a roadmap?

 --------------------------

 Cheers
-- 

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Anoop Atre
IS Developer & Integrator, MnPALS
PH: 507.389.5060
OF: 3022 Memorial Library (Office-ML 3022)
--
"Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens"
 ~ Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller