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How to create a report (V5)
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Note: This KB is for list view and summary view reports (also known as "V5 reports") only. For report definition reports ("V6 reports"), see How to create a Report Definition rule.
Overview
Process Commander supports two kinds of reports: lists and summaries.
List reports display lists of data that match selection criteria. For example, an operator’s worklist is a report of this type:
Summary reports present the data that match selection criteria as an aggregate – that is, summarized lists that are organized by data point. This report shows open work, summarized by work status:
To drill down to the individual work objects, you can, expand the section in the summary report. For example, a click on the Status: New category in the report shown above displays in a separate window a list of work objects with status equaling New:
Summary reports support including interactive charts to display report data in a more informative way as a pie, bar, column, area, or line chart. For information about creating charts, see Preparing to create and use interactive charts.
V5 reports are implemented through list view and summary view rules, which the Report Wizard can generate for you. If you have a system administrator access role, you can share the reports you create with other users and embed links to them on the Monitor Activity page.
Reports and the Report Wizard
The Monitor Activity page in the Designer Studio or a WorkManager portal provides access to the standard reports and the Report Wizard. To open the Monitor Activity page, select 
> Process & Rules > Work Management > Monitor Activity.
The Monitory Activity page lists a subset of the standard reports, organized by category, and provides a toolbar with three buttons for each category:
- To see all the reports from a category, click the Browse button on the toolbar in that section.
- To start the Report Wizard, click the Create Custom Report button on the toolbar of the appropriate category.
- To see a list of your custom reports, click the Custom Reports button on the toolbar of the appropriate category.
Most reports display data from a single application (work pool). If you have access to more than one application, be sure to select the application you are interested in before running the report.
Report Categories
Operators with the WorkManager role and using the WorkManager portal see the following report categories in the Monitor Activity window:
- Monitor Assignments reports gather and present information about the open assignments in one application (work pool). They list assignments that are past their goals and deadlines, and show assignments by organization so you can determine which group might need help. These reports can show you the contents of work lists and workbaskets. For a list of these reports, see
Reports in the Monitor Assignments group. - Monitor Processes reports provide information about the open (unresolved) work objects being processed by one application. They show counts of the work grouped by status, compare the number of open items today with the number a week ago, and so on. For a list of these reports, see Reports in the Monitor Processes group.
Note that if your flows collect information about the effort (time) that goes into individual work objects, the effort reports from this category can compare data from the actual effort field to data from the estimated effort field.
- Analyze Quality reports summarize data about the resolved work objects from one application. These reports display data about how many items were resolved according to the service level agreements configured for the process, the operators who resolve the most items, and the number of work objects that were created in a specific time period, and so on. For a list of these reports, see Reports in the Analyze Quality group.
- Analyze Performance reports present performance information in terms of tasks – for example, how often was each kind of flow action selected by assignment, and how long it takes operator to complete that action. For a list of these reports, see Reports in the Analyze Performance group.
Operators with the SysAdmin role and using the Developer portal see two categories in addition to the four listed above:
- Rule Reports tally and list the rules in your system. The data included in these reports is system-wide – the data does not depend on the RuleSets or work pools you have access to.
- Data Reports. There are no standard data reports. Application developers may determine a need to report on instances of classes that inherit from the Data- base class.
Report Wizard
The Report Wizard presents a series of forms that prompt you to enter the information it needs to define a report, such as the selection criteria and which fields to display. When you finish the last form, the wizard creates a list view or summary view rule that stores that information.
To launch the Report Wizard, select the New icon from the toolbar of the relevant report category on the Monitor Activity page; or select > Application > Tools > V5 Report Wizard > [the report type]. If you cannot start the Report Wizard, you do not have Report Wizard privileges. Ask your system administrator for help.
For step-by-step procedures that describe how to use the Report Wizard, see Creating a list report and Creating a summary report, below.
Tip: If you or others need to create new reports or modify existing reports on a production system, create a RuleSet specifically to hold report rules. Then have your system administrator add the RuleSet to the production RuleSet list in the appropriate access groups. The report RuleSet would probably be the only unlocked RuleSet on the production system.
Selection criteria
By default, Process Commander stores information for an object only in a "blob" column in tables in the PegaRULES database. Because the blob is compressed, this data storage method is faster and more space-efficient than storing the value of each property in a separate column; this storage method also supports aggregate property modes such as arrays and repeating groups.
Work objects, assignments, rules, and data classes have a set of standard properties whose values are stored both in the blob and in separate columns. These properties — work status, create operator, goal time, for example — are said to be "exposed" and they are what you canuse as selection criteria for your reports.
Because reports can select records based only the values of exposed properties, the application developers considered your reporting needs while planning and implementing the data design for your applications. However, after you start creating custom reports you may determine that additional properties need to be exposed.
If you determine that you need additional properties to use for selection criteria, consider the following guidelines:
- To expose Single Value, non-embedded properties, you can directly change the schema of the existing
pc_worktables or other storage tables by adding new columns for the properties. For information, see How to expose a work object property as a column and update data views. - To expose complex or embedded properties, you must use declarative indexing. For information, see Exposing Complex Properties Using Declarative Indexing
To see the columns of the tables in the PegaRULES database, use the View/Modify Database Schema Wizard.
Creating a list report
To create a list report (list view rule), complete the following steps:
1. From the Monitor Activity page, click the Create Custom Reports button in the appropriate category. For example, to create a report about open work, click the button in the Monitor Processes toolbar.
2. In the Select View Type form, select List View and click Next.
3. In the Data Source form, select the appropriate class or work type. The options that appear depend on the category you started the Report Wizard from. If you started it from Monitor Processes, the form displays work types. If you launched it from Monitor Assignments, the form lists assignment classes:
For example, to create workbasket report, select Assign-WorkBasket; to create a report about external assignments, select Assignment to External; and so on.
4. In the Define Criteria form, specify selection criteria — that is, the fields and their values — to use as the selection criteria for the records to include in the report. The image below shows the criteria for a report about open work:
Note the following about the Define Criteria form:
- The fields that appear in the drop-down list depend on the class specified in the Select Available Fields From field. If the field you want to use is inherited, specify the parent class in the Select Available Fields From field.
- If this report requires the person who runs it to provide the field values for the selection criteria at runtime (a range of dates, for example), select Prompt User Before Executing the Report.
- Use the Condition and Value fields to specify the field value(s) that qualify a record for inclusion in the report. For example, you can set the condition to
is not nullto include all records with any value in that field; you can set the condition for a numeric field togreater thanorless than, you can set the condition for any field to beequal to; for string fields you can usebegins withanddoes not begin with, and so on.
5. When you are finished with the selection criteria, verify there are records that match the criteria with the preview count link. Then click Next.
6. In the Select Fields form, specify the fields you want displayed as columns in the list report. For example:
By default, the column name is the field name. To change the caption for the column, select the field and enter the new name in the Field Caption field. Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to organize the fields in the order in which you want them to appear.
7. In the End form, specify which buttons to display when an operator generates this report, and then click Next. (For descriptions of each button, see the Application Developer Help.)
8. In the Preview form, examine the results. Is this what you wanted? If not, click << Back and fine-tune the display fields and/or selection criteria until you are satisfied. When you are finished, click Save View.
9. In the Save form, name and describe the list view rule that holds your report definition. The Purpose field holds the report name and the Title field holds the Short Description. Then click Save.
The wizard saves the report as a list view rule and displays the Delegate View form.
10. Do one of the following:
- If you have the SysAdmin access role, specify whether everyone in your access group should have access to the report or not. Select My Personal or My Access Group and enter the text for the link to the report. If you select My Access Group the report appears in the list of links on the Monitor Activity page and in the custom report list of everyone in your access group. If you select My Personal, it appears only in your list.
- If you do not have the SysAdmin role, you cannot share the rule. Enter the text for the link to the report. The link appears in your list of custom reports only.
Creating a summary report
To create a summary report (summary view rule), complete the following steps:
1. From the Monitor Activity page, click the Create Custom Reports button in the appropriate category. For example, to create a report about assignments, click the button in the Monitor Assignments toolbar.
2. In the Select View Type form, select Summary View and click Next.
3. In the Data Source form, select the appropriate class or work type. The options that appear depend on the category you launched the Report Wizard from. If you launched it from Monitor Processes, the form displays work types. If you launched it from Monitor Assignments, the form lists assignment classes.
4. In the Define Criteria form, specify the selection criteria – that is, the fields and their values – to use as the selection criteria for the records to include in the report. The picture below shows the criteria for a report about open work:
Note the following about the Define Criteria form:
- The fields that appear in the drop-down list depend on the class specified in the Select Available Fields From field. If the field you want to use is inherited, specify the parent class in the Select Available Fields From field.
- If this report requires the person who runs it to provide the field values for the selection criteria at runtime (a range of dates, for example), select Prompt User Before Executing the Report.
- Use the Condition and Value fields to specify the field value(s) that qualify a record for inclusion in the report. For example, you can set the condition to
is not nullto include all records with any value in that field; the condition for a numeric field togreater thanorless than; the condition for any field to beequal to; the condition for string fields tobegins withanddoes not begin with, and so on.
5. When you are finished with the selection criteria, verify there are records that match the criteria with the preview count link. Then click Next.
6. In the Group By form, specify how you want the data summarized. For example, for a report about open work objects, you could specify that the data should be organized by organization unit, division, and organization.
By default, the grouping name is the field name. To change the caption for the grouping, select the field and enter the new name in the Field Caption field. Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to organize the fields in the order in which you want them to appear.
7. In the Select Functions on Fields form, specify the computation to use to summarize the data according to the Group By levels you specified in the preceding form. In the following example, the report displays a simple count of all the records that match the selection criteria:
For numerical single-value properties, you can also specify that their values be added (sum) or averaged.
8. Users of summary view reports can drill down to the individual records. In the Drill Down form, specify the fields you want displayed as columns in the lists that show the individual records.
By default, the column name is the field name. To change the caption for the column, select the field and enter the new name in the Field Caption field. Use the Move Up and Move Down buttons to organize the fields in the order in which you want them to appear.
9. In the Chart form, click Next without selecting the chart option. (For information about creating a chart for a summary report, see Preparing to Create and Use Interactive Charts.)
10. In the End form, specify which buttons to display when an operator generates this report, and then click Next. (For descriptions of each button, see the Application Developer Help.)
11. In the Preview form, examine the results. Is this what you wanted? If not, click <<Back and fine-tune the display fields and/or selection criteria until you are satisfied. When you are finished, click Save View.
12. In the Save form, name and describe the list view rule that holds your report definition. The Purpose field holds the report name and the Title field holds the Short Description. Then click Save.
The wizard saves the report as a summary view rule and displays the Delegate View form.
13. Do one of the following:
- If you have the SysAdmin role, specify whether everyone in your access group should have access to the report or not. Select My Personal or My Access Group and enter the text for the link to the report. If you select My Access Group the report appears in the list of links on the Monitor Activity page and in the custom report list of everyone in your access group. If you select My Personal, it appears only in your list.
- If you do not have the SysAdmin role, you cannot share the rule. Enter the text for the link to the report. The link appears in your list of custom reports only.