Spotlight on Reports: Week 2 of 3

Last week in our spotlight on reports, we described how you can quickly add and remove columns as well as adjust the column sorting. This week we will be showing how to quickly sort your report information as well as adding column and group totals.

Las Vegas Training Event
More information has been released on the next user training seminar. Please click on the image below to download a PDF with additional information.

Report Sorting, Grouping, and Totaling
When viewing any report, one of the main tools used to analyze the data is sorting. Using the SETUP button in the toolbar at the top of a report, you can access the Report Setup screen. In the lower half of the form, you will see a tab group that defaults to the sort / group tab.

By using the 5 drop down options, you can determine the sort order of the reports. In the example above, the data on the report will first be ordered by the Shop Name and then by the farthest Target Date in the future. Using the Group and Total check boxes will add a Group Band to the report as well as Totaling the group prior to the start of the next group.

Tip: When Grouping, it is best to have your groups at the top of the sort list in the order that you want the grouping to occur. For example, you would want to Group By Repair Center, Shop, and then sort by Target date. In the screenshot below it shows Grouped By Shop Name, Sorted By Target Date (Desc), and a total was added to the group by clicking the total check box.

Finally, in addition to the totaling option on the group, you can specify which numeric fields you want to total or hide the total. To do this, in the report setup, click on the field you wish to edit and then simply set the Total if Selected option to Yes or No.

Work Matrix Overview

Based on Work Order Management being one of the core features of the our software, we include many powerful tools including the Work Matrix. From this tool you can sort, filter, view, and check current work order counts in a number of meaningful ways. 

The Work Matrix can be conveniently found as a tab on the MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Operations) application Home Screen and provides two key sections including the summary grid and the sorting rows.  The grid shows a detailed view of current work orders broken down by the following groups:  All, Open Requests (aka Unscheduled WOs), and Open PMs.  The sorting rows are user definable and in the screenshot below we can see the gradient blue rows grouping the work orders by Shop and then by Labor Assignments. 

The Work Matrix sorting can be defined using the two drop down filters at the top of the grid to choose one or two distinct sorting options.  One common sorting combination is using Shop as the primary sort and Labor Assignment as the secondary.  In addition, the repair center is a default sort that is not required to be selected.   Several sorting options include multiple selections and can accomplish a broader view of your work orders.  One example is the “Categories, Problems, and Procedures” choice that includes three groups.

The true power of the Work Matrix can be found in the Mouse Click Action drop down pictured below.  From this menu, you can select the action you want to perform when a cell is selected.   The core choices are to “Set Criteria” in the Work Order Explorer, run a basic “Work Order List Report”, print the work order hard copy via the “Work Order Report” option, and pass the selected WOs as criteria to any other pre-configured report via “Run Report …”. 

For example,  if I click on the 3 displayed in the screenshot below, the Work Matrix will send the filter information to the standard Work Order Report to print those 3 specific work orders in batch. 

As we have demonstrated,  the Work Matrix is a powerful analysis tool that can be utilized to manage your open work orders. If you haven’t used it already, give it a try, and if you have any questions be sure to let us know as we are always glad to help.  You can reach our support team at (888) 567-3434 x82 and/or support@maintenanceconnection.com during regular business hours.

Embedding HTML within Maintenance Connection

One feature of the software that you may not know about is embedding HTML. Since Maintenance Connection is a browser-based software, the system lends itself to this feature and it can be used to greatly enhance the display of information.

Take for example the work order tasks that are added to the work order from the associated procedure. You can modify the task on the procedure to include text formatting (Color, Bold, Italic, etc) or images. If you add the following HTML to the Task, the system will use it to format the information.

• <B>I want this part of my task to be BOLD</B><font color=”red”> and this part RED</font>, but I want the rest to be normal.

Place the HTML enhanced Task into the Task edit:

And the result will be the following:

If you use the following syntax, you can embed images into the tasks to help emphasize your task information.

• Please examine the following image<BR>so you know how you should approach your tasks:<BR><img src=”http://www.maintenanceconnection.com/mcv18/mapp_v40/images/boyface_happy.gif&#8221; alt=”Happy face” />

Place the HTML enhanced Task into the Task edit:

And the result will be the following:

When a work order is created with this procedure/tasks list, all of the formatting will come across with it. HTML can be used in a variety of places in addition to tasks. You can use it in the report custom expressions, in various text fields like the Reason field of the work order module, and in pretty much any Name or Description field.

All you need is a little knowledge of HTML syntax and you can begin enhancing your information views. If you have any questions on the specific uses of the above information, please contact our support team for assistance.

Setting Up Conditional Formatting

Conditional Formatting is a way to set the style of records in the explorer sections of the Maintenance Connection software. This will allow you to quickly identify records that you may need to take action on. Currently, Conditional Formatting can only be used in the Work Order, Asset, Purchase Order, and Inventory modules. In order to set up Conditional Formatting you will need to be logged into the MRO and have the appropriate access group rights.

In this example, we will be highlighting certain work orders by setting the text to red when they are set at a High priority. Start by selecting the Preferences option from the Tools dropdown menu. Once the Preferences  dialog window is open, ensure that the Work Order module has been selected in the list on the left.

The Conditional Formatting can be set to occur for only your specific user or for all members of a specific repair center.

For each module that is setup to use conditional formatting, you can set up to three Format Criteria.

We need to tell the system how to find the Work Orders that are High priority. In order to do this we will need to add in some SQL by clicking the Format Criteria 1 option, a new window with an input will appear with which we will add the following SQL:

Select 1 From WO WITH (NOLOCK) WHERE WOPK = [RECORDPK] AND PRIORITYDESC = 'HIGH'

Now that we have told the system how to identify the High priority work orders, we can tell it how to display them. Clicking on Format Style 1 will bring up another window with which we will add the following code for the red color:

COLOR:#FF0000

After saving our preferences and closing the preference dialog we can refresh the Work Order Explore window to see our changes.

As you can see, this feature can be extremely useful in identifying and highlighting records in the Maintenance Connection system that need attention. For more information on how to setup Conditional Formatting as well as additional examples of SQL that can be used, please download the Conditional Formatting PDF Tutorial.

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NFMT 2009 Trade Show

Join us at the National Facilities Management and Technology Show next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (March 10-12) in Baltimore. Find us at booth #1859. If you’re able to stop by, let us know.

Introduction to Notification Rules

Many of you may already know that Maintenance Connection includes an automation tool called the Rules Manager. The Rules Manager has two very distinct features. These features are Auto Assignment Rules and Notification Rules. In the following video, we are going to give a brief introduction to the Notification Rules. Using this tool within Maintenance Connection can help your organization automate the process of communication and alerts.

As you can see, the Notification Rules are very customizable and have the flexibility to meet the most demanding of needs. As always, our support staff and your Implementation Consultant would be glad to answer any questions you may have about this subject. For a hard copy of the information from this video please download the following PDF file.

Notification Rules

Reminder! Our Annual Customer Survey will remain open for one more week, so take a couple minutes to let us know your thoughts about your experience with Maintenance Connection. We want to be sure that each need is addressed personally by our support team. After the survey is closed, all entries will go into a drawing for a FREE iPod Nano – so don’t delay!