Format

This section allows you to choose the media format of your completed report.

The following formats are available:

Format	Description
Web	The web format is the default interface for all reports. The results are displayed in a new browser window which contains a combination of HTML, CSS and JavaScript content. To navigate through a report consisting of multiple pages, click on the , , or icons at the top-right corner of the screen. Universally-accessible, the web format provides a mixture of graphical charts and tabular data, whose column headers are click-able to allow dynamic sorting of results.
PDF	The PDF format guarantees an identical look across all operating systems, making it an ideal report format for printing out on paper, or for e-mailing to colleagues inside and outside of your organisation. Due to the static nature of the PDF format, dynamic sorting of column headers is not available, although results can be pre-sorted using the filters and options available during report creation.
Excel	The Excel format is useful for onward manipulation of the data contained in your reports, or for including results in popular spreadsheet packages.
CSV	The CSV format allows report results to be arranged in comma-separated lists of data. CSV files are often used for transferring data between different applications, such as databases, spreadsheets, and other third-party programs.
XML	The XML format can be useful when transferring the structured data from your report results to third-party applications, such as billing, accounting and time management applications.

This allows you to define the format of the output. Simply click on your preferred output format to determine whether you would like the report output in Web format, to PDF, CSV, as XML or Excel.

To select, simply click on your chosen format from the list as shown above. Note that any report can be run several times with different formats selected for the output if required.

Format	Description
Web	When a report is run, its output is displayed in the Report Output window, which is a mini web-browser containing the HTML output generated by the report engine. It is the common interface for all reports. The report body is shown in a window that can be panned around by using the horizontal and vertical scrollbars. If the report is made up of multiple pages, you can navigate it by using the Back and Fwd buttons at the bottom. You can print the report by pressing the Print button, or save the report to an HTML file by pressing the Save button and choosing a filename and location. Universally-accessible, this format provides clickable column headers for dynamic sorting of table data, with clean graphical charts in the popular Flash format, so you can zoom into them for more detail. Each report is fully customisable - right down to the individual table fields. To view these reports, all that's needed is your favourite web browser - with no need for obscure add-ons!
PDF (Portable Document Format)	PDF is a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for document exchange. PDF is used for representing two-dimensional documents in a manner independent of the application software, hardware, and operating system. PDFs will run over several pages depending on the report selected. Because of the nature of PDF reports, headers are fixed and not selectable as in web reports above. You may however pre-sort before running or scheduling using the filters available in the Options section. PDFs are ideal for producing reports like Phone Bills. PDFs are ideal when distributing to colleagues inside and outside of your organisation - while guaranteeing they'll look identical across all operating systems when viewed on the screen or printed out.
XML (Extensible Markup Language)	XMLs purpose is to aid information systems in sharing structured data, especially via the internet, to encode documents and to serialise data. XML, in combination with other standards, makes it possible to define the content of a document separately from its formatting, making it easy to reuse that content in other applications or for other presentation environments. Most importantly, XML provides a basic syntax that can be used to share information between different kinds of computers, different applications, and different organizations without needing to pass through many layers of conversion. Since all reports are derived from this native format, we pack each one with all the data you'd ever need, so you'll always be able to extract the report data into your favourite reporting packages, such as Business Objects, Crystal Reports, or even your favourite Office spreadsheet.
CSV (Comma Separated Values)	A CSV file is used for the digital storage of data structured in a table of lists form, where each associated item (member) in a group is in association with others also separated by the commas of its set. Each line in the CSV file corresponds to a row in the table. Within a line, fields are separated by commas, each field belonging to one table column. CSV files are often used for moving tabular data between two different computer programs, for example between a database program and a spreadsheet program. This option is ideal for interacting with your own back office systems, all CSV data is fully customisable using XSLT from the report's original XML format.
Excel	Select Excel as your preferred report format, if you would like to manipulate the data and possibly integrate with data in other Excel spreadsheets.