With a VolunteerMatters Enterprise subscription you are able to request an additional Security Access Role permission that will enable an administrator to Add, Edit, and Delete Report Templates.
We do not recommend editing the built-in report templates as any changes made will be overwritten when our development team makes reporting updates.
We only recommend creating new templates. If you would like to modify a built-in report with additional fields, we simply recommend editing the report and downloading the report template file to your local machine and updating the report template and then creating a new report template using the directions below.
You need to have Jasperforge iReport installed on your system to open and create/modify report templates. iReport is a generic application used to build reports. While, the adding, editing, or removing of report templates within VolunteerMatters is extremely easy, creating and editing those report templates in iReport should be done by an experienced report writer.
To Add or Edit a Report Template within VolunteerMatters:
1 - Create the New Report Template (jrxml file extension) within Jasperforge iReport with the templates provided.***
2 - Log into VolunteerMatters with the proper administrative privileges and navigate to Setup > Report Templates.
3 - Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click the 'Add' icon or click 'Edit' next to an existing report template.
4 - You will then enter or select the following information:
- Name
- Description
- Report Group
- Active
- Report Role (which security access role should have access to view and run the report. Please note the role must have access to the Reports page to be able to run a report)
- Sequence
- Output Formats
- Data Source
Click 'Save'
5 - Once you have clicked save, you will be presented with additional fields (Data Source Order, Data Source Filter, Report Filter, Allow Edit Report Filter, Jasper Design File Upload).
At this point you can only upload the report template file by clicking "Browse" and locating the file on your local machine and then clicking "Save". This will return you to the main report template page.
6 - To edit the Data Source Sort Order, Data Source Filter, Report Filter, or Allow Edit Report Filter fields, or to overwrite the jrxml file with an updated one you must click 'Edit' next to the report you just created.
You can then edit all of the report template attributes including:
- Data Source Sort Order -This will designate how the data is sorted within the report.
- Data Source Filter - This filter will initially filter the data that the report will then return to the administrator. This is not available to the end user when running the report. It is basically a pre-filter. So if you set this to only return contacts with a status of 'Active' only those records will be included in the report results with no way of adding additional statuses when simply running the report.
- Report Filter - This is the built-in filter that an administrator will see when running the report. They will have the opportunity to add to this or remove it completely when running a report.
- Allow Edit Report Filter - This setting will determine if a report administrator can edit the report filter configured above or if it is fixed.
The report template file will be available for download via the "Jasper Design File" link when editing or viewing a report template.
***Within iReport we recommend the following configuration:
Open iReport and click on Tools and select options.
On the general tab select the "compatibility" subtab and select JasperReports 4_0_1 and then restart ireport.
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