Please Note: This feature is only available in AppColl Plus. Click here for pricing and details on the plus features.

The Advance Graphical Reporting feature in AppColl allows you to understand and manage your business more effectively. You can generate customizable line, bar and pie charts aggregating your data in complex ways. For example, you can see a report of the average amount billed per matter for each patent type in each country. You could also generate a chart showing how the time between patent filing and issuing changes over time.

Graphical reports are displayed on a dashboard, where you can drag, drop and resize charts to display the information most important to you when you log in.

As with all other reports in AppColl, advanced reports can also be scheduled to be emailed to interested parties at regular times. 

AppColl provides many standard advanced reports that can be easily customized to meet your specific needs.

Enable Advanced Reports

AppColl’s Advance Reports are available if your current subscription plan is AppColl PM Plus. For users that are not account administrators, you may have to update their Contact permission settings to allow access. If advanced reporting is not enabled, the user's report module looks the same as before the PM Plus upgrade.

1. Go to the Contacts module.
2. Select the Contact record you wish to enable. 

3. Click the Permissions button. 
4. Select the Advanced checkbox on the Reports line.
5. Click the Ok button. 

6. If you made any changes to their permissions, be sure to Save. 

Types of Reports

With advanced reports enabled, there are two types of reports available.

• Advanced Reports, created exclusively from the Dashboard page, are graphical reports resulting from more complex analysis of information in your account. The primary method of creating an advance report is to customize one of the many standard reports provided.
• Module Reports, created by adding filters in a module and saving a report from that page. These reports consist of simple tables of records with specific columns shown.

Account administrators can create an advance report "from scratch" using the expert settings page, but this is a relatively complex task. Please contact AppColl support for more information.

Displaying and Working with Reports

1. To view a report, find it from the Select Report section, put your mouse over the report/chart type icon on the left, and drag it onto the right hand side of the page. Note that preview information for the report will also appear upon hover. 

2. After a report is on the dashboard page it can be moved by hovering over the Header area to drag and drop to the desired location on the Dashboard.
3. To make the report view larger or smaller, expand or collapse the window as desired from the bottom right-side of the window. The position and size of reports displayed in the Dashboard is remembered on a per-user basis. When dragging reports, the size of the report will change to fill the available space, making it easy to build a dashboard consisting of multiple reports. 
4. There are several icons in the header bar of the report:

• The AppColl logo indicates that the report is a standard report.
• The Customize link is used to modify the report. See more about report customization below.
• The Excel icon downloads a CSV of the data in this report.
• The PDF icon generates a PDF of the report.
• The Mail icon allows you to quickly email this report to someone in PDF or CSV format.
• The Recycle icon re-runs the report and displays results for the current information. Note: Reports are not updated automatically if underlying data changes.
• The Dashed-box icon is used to show the report "full-screen", filling the entire dashboard.
• The Close icon closes the report window. It does not delete the report itself.

5. To find a report, you can search for a report by typing text into the Search available reports box or browse the list in the Select Report window.
6. In the list the reports are grouped into categories, as indicated by a > in front of the name. Clicking on the > expands the category to show all reports in that category. 
7. Click the Gear icon to work with Advanced Settings for the report. 

8. To delete a report, simply click on the Trashcan icon next to the report name. 
9. Note that you may not delete AppColl standard reports. In the list, these are shown with a small AppColl logo. While standard reports cannot be modified or deleted, they can be copied and customized to make new reports that meet your needs.

10. Reports are modified or copied by clicking on the Customize link at the top of the report window in the dashboard.

11. Note that the fields and controls will vary depending on the report and the current user's permissions. You can change the Title of the report and the report Description.
12. Update the Category if desired.
13. For some reports you can change the Report Period for the data in the report, and how the periods are grouped in the Group By dropdown.
14. In the Filters section, you can limit the data used for the report by typing text in the text boxes next to the fields names. Only records with fields that match the corresponding text will be used to generate the report. Please see assistance below in the section Filter Text Syntax.
15. If you are customizing a standard report, the Save Changes button will not be present. After making changes, click on the Save Changes button to update the current report. 
16. Click on the Save As New Report to copy this report and create a new one with your customization (leaving the current report unchanged). You must change the title if you wish to save a new report.

Filter Text Syntax

The text entered can be a simple list of terms or a more complex Boolean expression. Searches are always case insensitive.

The following Boolean operators are supported in order of precedence:

Note that if no operator exists between two terms AND is assumed. For example, cat dog is processed the same as cat AND dog.

You can change the operator precedence (the order in which they are evaluated) by using parentheses.

The following table shows examples of search text matched to a field that contains: