The Business Intelligence Tool at a Glance

The Environment:

The left half of the reporting tool is where you will build your reports. The right half of the tool is where the results of a selected report are displayed.

Reports:

Individual reports are denoted in the tool with the blue statistics icon:

The gray arrow to the right of the report’s icon and name is the button used to generate the report and display its results.

Base Datasets and Tables:

In an individual report, the orange stacked icon represents the base dataset of the report, and the red table icons represent the tables that make up the dataset:

Modifiers:

For each dataset and view, you are given a short list of modifiers that you can use to further shape the data of the reports:

• Conditions
• Group By
• Having
• Order By
• Limit

Columns:

Each report has a section for columns to be stored and used in the report. These are taken from the tables of the datasets. The columns list is denoted by the three green lines icon, while the columns themselves are denoted by three or six green dots.

Identifiers:

Each column can have an identifier assigned to it. These are used for advanced functions on reports. Some of the most used identifiers are provided in a dropdown, but custom identifiers can be typed in. The most commonly used report views are `month`, `year`, `person_id`, and `household_id`. These must be assigned to the corresponding column, as a report could have multiple person IDs, and your desire to filter off a specific one.  

Views:

Views are the front-facing ‘view’ of the report. One report may have multiple views, which all have different columns from the report, and different conditions and modifiers. These are the final steps to representing the data in a custom fashion that will be easy for a user to understand.

The views list is denoted by the blue eye icon, and the individual views are denoted by white eye icons:

The gray eye icons to the right of the views are buttons that allow you to preview your views in a new tab.

Aggregate Datasets:

Aggregate datasets are denoted by the yellow stacked icons, and are set up identically to the Base datasets, with tables, modifiers, and columns:

You can also see how the aggregate dataset is joined to a table within the base dataset and is denoted by the same yellow stacked icon.