Part 4 — Report Details · Chapter 4.1
How the Reports Work
Chapters 4.2 to 4.21 explain the reports in Actions > Reports, one report to a chapter. On the Reports page, the purple ? beside Report opens the chapter for the report you picked.
Each chapter tells you:
- what you need to set up or enter for the report to work, in a red box near the top
- where the data comes from
- how the figure is worked out
- which fields decide if a record counts
- which date puts a record in a month, quarter or year
Read them when a figure surprises you. Every figure can be checked against the records behind it, and each chapter says what those records are.
This chapter holds the rules every report shares. Chapter 3.9 shows how to open the Reports page and use its filters.
What each report needs
Most reports read things your office already records. Some need an administrator to set something up first, and some need a date or a choice entered on each work order. This table shows which. Each report’s chapter shows where and how.
| Report | Statuses to map in Reports > Setup | Entered on the work order |
|---|---|---|
| Work Order Counts | none | nothing |
| Work Order Counts by Customer | none | nothing |
| Invoice Amounts | none | approved invoices with an Invoice Date |
| Invoice Amounts by Customer | none | approved invoices with an Invoice Date |
| Active and Quiet Customers | none | approved invoices with an Invoice Date |
| Days Between Two Statuses | none | status changes |
| Site Retention | none | a site, and recurring work in its own project |
| Quotes Sent by Role | Quote Sent | the person in each role |
| Quote Follow-Up | Quote Sent | the Quote Followed Up date |
| Quote Value by Role | none | sent quotes with a Quote Date, and the person in each role |
| Work Completed to Invoiced | Work Completed | approved invoices with an Invoice Date |
| Quote Approved to Invoiced | Quote Sent, Quote Approved | approved invoices with an Invoice Date |
| Request to Quote | Quote Sent | the Request Received date, when it is earlier than the work order |
| Quote Conversion | Quote Sent, Quote Approved | status changes |
| Quotes Approved by Role | Quote Sent, Quote Approved | the person in each role |
| Request to First Visit | Quote Sent | visits classified as technician visits, with an Actual Start, and the Request Received date |
| Quote Approval to First Visit | Quote Sent, Quote Approved | visits classified as technician visits, with an Actual Start |
| Technician Visits per Job | none | visits classified as technician visits |
| Warranty Visits | none | visits classified as warranty visits |
| Unbillable Visits | none | visits classified as unbillable visits |
Every report drops cancelled work orders once Cancelled is mapped. Visits are classified by activity name in Reports > Setup > Activity Classification. Reports that count business days also need your holidays in Actions > Setup > Holiday Schedule.
Where the figures come from
The reports do not read your live data. They read a reporting copy of it.
- BigWave copies new and changed records into the reporting copy on a schedule.
- After each copy, BigWave rebuilds the figures for each month that changed.
- Press Sync Now, at the top right of the page, to copy and rebuild at once. A dialog lists each step and each record as it goes. Close it when it says Sync finished.
- Figures last refreshed, at the top right of the filters, says when the figures were last rebuilt.
- A few reports, such as Site Retention, store no figures. BigWave works them out from the reporting copy each time you open them, so they show no Figures last refreshed line. They are as fresh as the last copy.
- Updating figures… blinks beside it while a copy runs or a month waits to be rebuilt. When it stops, the chart redraws with the new figures.
A change you make now shows in the reports after the next copy, or after Sync Now.
Records that never count
- A deleted work order.
- A work order in a deleted project.
- A work order template. Only real work orders count.
- A cancelled work order. BigWave treats a work order as cancelled when its latest status maps to the Cancelled milestone in Reporting Setup. A work order that was cancelled and then reopened counts again.
The cancelled rule needs setup. Until an administrator maps a status to Cancelled, no work order is cancelled for the reports. When you map one, every report drops those work orders at once.
The date range
- Year From and Year To take whole calendar years, 1 January to 31 December.
- The lists offer the years from your first work order or invoice to your last one.
- Show For splits the range into months, quarters or years. A record belongs to the period its date falls in. Each report says which date it uses.
The Projects filter
Projects narrows every figure to the projects you tick. All projects counts every project. The project is the work order’s project now, not the project it had when it was made.
Grouping
Group By splits a figure into parts. The part a record goes in comes from its work order as it is now:
- Customer is the work order’s customer.
- Project is the work order’s project.
- Region is the work order’s region. A work order with no region goes under No region.
- Technician is each technician assigned to the work order. A work order with two technicians counts once for each of them, so the parts can add up to more than the total. A work order with no technician goes under No technician.
Show Top
Show Top appears when a count or an amount is split into groups. It keeps the biggest groups and leaves the rest off the chart.
- All shows every group. It is the default.
- 5, 10 and 20 keep that many groups.
- BigWave ranks the groups by their total over the whole date range, not month by month. A group keeps its place and its color in every column.
- The groups left off are not added into another column. A line under the description says how many were hidden, for example “12 customers hidden by the Show Top setting.”
Checking a figure
- Press Chart Data. A grid lists each figure the chart draws.
- Press View records on a row. The Data In Report tab lists the records behind that figure. Some reports leave records out, and a Left Out of Report tab then lists them with the reason.
- Click a work order number to open that work order in a new tab.
For a quicker way to the records, double-click a bar on the chart. In a stacked column, double-click the part for the group you want. The same records dialog opens for that figure. The grey Last year line and the orange trend line are not records, so a double-click on them does nothing.
Both grids page through long lists. To export a grid, click the gear beside the view name and choose Export.