Report Form

Although there may be more options on some forms, the basic report layout lets you select a report, fine-tune how it will print and either preview it or print it.

This form displays available reports and allows you to set both "general options" (typically shared by all reports) and "report options" that are specific to the report you have selected.

Key Concepts

Reporting is available from each form in the system by selecting the Print button located on the bottom left side of the function buttons.
For most forms, the reports are in the form of a short "list" format and a longer "detail" format that can be used for review purposes. For forms that handle more complex types of data, the report list is typically longer.
The FF&E Worksheet is the exception to this pattern (also, the Orders List and Expediting List in the Purchasing Module). It includes a variety of reports that show the actual items in the project (as opposed to alternate objects or specs that have been created but not used). In general, all presentation reports will be found under the FF&E Worksheet's Print button.
If you have an active query when you select the Print button, the system will automatically use that query to produce a filtered report. However, you can always override this behavior by selecting the "All records" option.
Reports can be previewed using the Preview command instead of the Print button. Once in the preview screen, you can still print the report or save it to a PDF or Excel file (note that there are layout limitations for Excel files).
Some reports, especially those that create legal documents like quotes or orders, include a "boilerplate" text option, which lets you set up text that automatically appears on all documents of that type. If this option is available, an editing button will appears on the setup form after you select the report.

The Basics

Reporting is "context sensitive," so the kinds of reports you see in the report list will be related to the major editing screen on which you are working.

In addition, some "quick filters" work by looking at the particular record (row) you were on when you selected Print. The Report Setup for each major editing form uses the current list row to define the "current item" option under "Filter," which allows you to quickly filter the report to only a specific subset. For instance, on the FF&E Worksheet, the sub-project, area, room, primary vendor or object you are currently on can be used to print all records that match that sub-project, area, room, vendor or object.

Note: In the Purchasing system, the reports on the Orders and Expediting screen automatically default to "Current project" instead of "All records."

Report Options

Some reports have report-specific options that can be set by clicking on the "Report Options" tab on the Report Setup Form. Be sure you check these before printing a report the first time so that you know what control you may have over the report content and format.

Although you can select a PDF printer as your printer, as of version 3.2.140, you can print directly to a PDF file using the >PDF option next to the normal print button.

Always use this option if you want to create compact PDF files with selectable text. In most cases, this option will prefill the file name with an appropriate suggestion, which you can change if needed by entering a name or by selecting an existing file to replace. When using this option, the system will automatically print to the FF&EZ-Export folder as the target location. You can select a different location as needed.

Notes:

If you print to a PDF printer instead of directly to a PDF file, the resulting PDF files may be in the PDF "image" format, in which the text cannot be selected or edited. Files created in this format are necessarily larger.
The advanced engine is selected by default. You can select which report engine to use by default using main screen's Setup command. If you select the older "legacy" engine, FF&EZ will attempt to convert new PNG image files to JPEG files. However, the transparency layer of PNG files may not convert clearly and we recommend that you manually convert these in a photo editor if you plan to regularly use the older print engine instead of the advanced one.

IMPORTANT: Some reports depend on the features in the advanced reporting engine, and using the "legacy" engine will not produce the desired results. This is particularly true of the most recent version (4.2.029) of the "Illustration Sheet" format. Although they are no longer guaranteed to continue working, the "legacy" versions of that format are still available by selecting an option on the Report Form.

On some Windows 10 or 11 systems, reports may print enlarged unless the following property of the FF&EZ program icon is set: Compatibility> Disable display scaling on high DPI settings. Leave this option "as is" unless you see a problem with out-of-scale reports. The option may have a slightly different label in some Windows versions.

Saving Custom Report Options

If you find that you keep setting certain report options each time you print a particular report, you can save the options for that report using the Save Report Options command on the "Report Options" tab.

When selecting a report to print, you can search for a key word or string of letters in the report name. This is useful on longer report lists to display just a subset of the reports.

For instance, if you set up your own versions of standard reports (using the "Save Report Options" feature), you can use a standard prefix or suffix to identify the customized version. If you do, you can use the report search feature quickly display only your saved reports, by entering your prefix or suffix as the search term.

If a report has a date option that is automatically filled in with a date (such as the current date), don't change that date before saving the report's options. When options are saved, they are the exact setting that you chose, so saving a changed date replaces the internal function with a fixed date. Saving a blank date will remove the automatic date function, but start with a blank date, as you might expect. You can restore the automatic function by using the "base" report to save a new set of options under the same name.

Report Updates

From time to time, a report update may be available, which is a single file either sent via email or downloaded with a link. If you have purchased any custom report formats, updates to these are also distributed in the same way, via a separate update file. Loading either of these updates is a simple procedure and is handled by the Update Reports utility.

More information about running reports is found in the How to... section under "Producing Reports."

Report Scaling Issues

On some Windows 10 systems with versions of FF&EZ at or later than 3.2.136, reports may print enlarged, exceeding the page width, unless the following property of the FF&EZ program icon is set: Compatibility> Disable display scaling on high DPI settings. You can access this property by right-clicking on the FF&EZ shortcut icon, then selecting "Properties" from the context menu that appears.

Report Preview Options

The Preview option that is available when printing reports (or processing documents in Design/Purchasing) includes extensive zoom settings, the ability to view multiple pages on screen and to select pages to view from thumbnails.

The preview option can also export directly to PDF, Excel and HTML files using a "Save" option (the blue disk icon below).

Notes:

The formatting for Excel and HTML output may be different from the printed or PDF version, depending on the complexity of a particular report. This is common in reports that have very tight column headings over narrow columns. This may shift the column data to a column to the right of the heading text. These can be moved back as needed in the spreadsheet using its standard cell manipulation commands.
On systems that do not have Excel or OpenOffice installed, the resulting spreadsheet file will be in XML format, which can be opened by these spreadsheets.
For long reports, this previewer may take longer to generate the preview file, so the original previewer is still available by right-clicking on the Preview button. Important: the older "fast" previewer will not print PNG files correctly if you use the small "Print" button that is part of the that preview's floating menu. When printing reports with images, we recommend that you use the regular preview or the Print or >PDF buttons for the final report.

Legacy Reports

Most reports are simply updated over time, however some reports are "retired" and replaced with versions that may be too different from the earlier version. If this happens, there is a chance that a user might need to use the earlier version until a project is complete. For this reason, the old versions of some reports are retained as "legacy" reports. These do not appear in the list (they are not as powerful or flexible as the new ones) but can be accessed by checking the "Include legacy reports" at the top left of this screen.

Example: The system once had a set of reports called the "Object Illustration Sheet" reports, but these have been replaced by the much more powerful "Illustration Sheet" reports. You can still access the old reports with the "legacy" option, however you should check that the data is being generated correctly.

Note: All reports that you have saved with custom options will continue to be visible, however be careful: The system may not support the options saved with these in the future. After an update, we recommend that you check any report setups you have saved. If one does not print as expected or does not include a new option described under "Version Changes," recreate the saved report from the new "base" report to ensure you have access to all new options and capabilities.