New Custom Reports - Master data / Unnecessary linked to transaction dates

#1

I am trying to recreate our custom report for ‘Member Roster’ which is really just a customer master data listing with specific fields. It is a very simple report using only customer master data.

In the new custom reports format - Strangely (i) I need to specify a date range which makes no sense for a customer master data listing (not transaction related) and (ii) I end up with a date as the first column on the report, which is entirely unwanted and not specified in the select at all.

How can I get rid of the date range in the heading, and the date column in the detail when I am simply trying to produce a member roster (i.e. customer listing) report?

I am also getting a ‘Total’ line for each group by despite the fact that there are no numerical fields to sum in the data. There is no ‘record count’ in that total line so the line is pure noise.

The biggest issue however is that every customer record appears multiple times on the report repeating with different dates - could be update history or transaction dates etc. Unclear. But (i) I get an empty listing if I don’t specify dates and (ii) I get repeat records when I do

Appreciate any and all guidance as I try to recreate our reports in the new custom report model.

Screen shot - repeaing records with dates
Screen shot - repeaing records with dates632×611 31.3 KB
Screen shot -report definition
Screen shot -report definition527×547 21 KB

[edit] OK - I have found that if I group by Customer Name I can get and select Groups to colapseI can get to a single record (i.e. what really feels like a true group by) but this suggests that the base select, even though the only record type/table in the select is the customer master is actually selecting transaction records for the customer. What’s going on there?

#2

The new reporting tool is deeply linked Transactions, ie there is no way to show a Client if it is not used in any transaction, same for Inventory Item, Suppliers and so on. Specularly, if the Client is linked to many Transactions it will be listed many times. The dates you see are the dates of each Transaction.

I have the same issue with Inventory Kits that were never sold. There’s no way to list them.

@lubos is currently working on a solution. He proposed a solution related to Sales Quotes (or Orders) which I don’t like since it would mean creating fictious Quotes with all Inventory Kits (I have around 500) just to list them. Let’s see what the future will bring us.

I love the new reporting tool but what I miss is:

  1. the possibility to choose the JOIN typologies between tables in order to see also results not linked to Transactions
  2. the possibility to link not only with AND but also with OR the WHERE clauses
  3. the possibility to freely manage Dates as the previous custom reports.

In general we are getting a great improvement in reporting but I see very difficult that any solution can have the same flexibility that standard SQL (visual or not) has.

IMHO I think that the most flexible solution is something very similar to Microsoft Access Queries, ie a visual tool to link tables, to choose the JOINS, the WHERE clauses with the possibility to manually edit the resulting SQL language.

But I hope to be be denied and jamb.

#3

FWIW - I was able to produce a list of customers including with new customers with no transactions when I grouped by and collapse group on Customer Name. You could try grouping by and then collapsing kits.

I do see some nice features in the new functionality but there are some significant losses here too.

#4

I warmly invite you to control your Reports. I’ve just checked and you cannot get anything that is not linked to a Transaction.

#5

It is disappointing that the ability to create “master lists” unrelated to transactions has been lost.
Custom Reports should be able to be used with all data of the business, and not be restricted to just one angle of the business - transactions. Yes, one could use Export or Batch functions, but that can have limitations.

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#6

I’m facing a lot of difficulties when using new custom reports.
Some features are better than old version but most features working well at old version are not capable to do at latest version.

#7

Dear @lubos, any solution for this issue? We have been experiencing this discomfort for almost three months…

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