Evergreen Reports Update

GPLS staff have been discussing the difficulties PINES libraries are having with reports.  I’d like to update you on where we are with the roadmap for improvements of the Evergreen reports interface.

We have a few things we will be doing in the near future to alleviate the difficulties libraries are having as we work toward the development of a new, user friendly reports interface.

•    We will be planning a Reports Working Group to look closely at reports and what we need for improvement.
•    We will be setting up a testing cluster server so that we can create and run templates in a test environment. This will enable the Reports Working Group to work collaboratively.
•    We will change the permissions for LocalAdmins so that they can create a folder in their name and share that folder with templates in it to all of PINES.  Sharing successful templates will help all PINES libraries.
•    GPLS staff will be creating more shared templates.
•    We would like to assist you with creating templates.  Any requests for assistance should be submitted through the helpdesk so that we can document and track issues across PINES just as we have done with holds.
•    Equinox has been working on Reports documentation.  We also plan to work on PINES specific documentation such as creating a list of recommended reports to run for maintenance purposes.

The following are some of the known issues that we have been discussing:

Reports Issues
•    Need an easier interface
•    Need a Directors reports interface
•    Change labels so that field elements are identifiable
•    Create a set of templates that are pre-written and delivered with the Evergreen product
•    Recurring reports should be editable

Documentation
•    More documentation
•    A visual representation of the tables
•    Better training materials

Troubleshooting improvements
•    Show the SQL statement running the report
•    Ability to export and import templates
•    Report Doc should have the title, name of template, and date and time it was run
•    Better understanding of what went wrong with a report