Reports

What is BLUE reporting?

The BLUE reporting module is being upgraded and updated using state-of-the-art technology provided by our partner Qlik.  Leveraging Qlik Sense technology, users will have access to interactive reports and analytics ranging from business KPIs to system usage.

In the near term, users will notice a mix of ‘legacy’ and Qlik reports.  As we migrate our legacy reports to Qlik Sense they will replace their legacy counterparts in the reports menu.

The screenshot below is an example of how to access reports from the Blue Menu.

Note: Report names and descriptions may be different in your system as they are configurable by the system administrator using the Advanced > Functions feature.

Who can access reports?

Access to view individual reports is based on security privileges assigned to the group(s) of which the BLUE user is a member.

Configuring report access (administration)

Integration of Qlik Reports with BLUE is done using standard Blue ‘Functions’.

New and upgraded installations of BLUE typically contain the standard set of reports described in the next section.  While the underlying functions are typically created by default, they are not assigned any default Group Privileges, so the they will not appear to BLUE users in the Reports Section until Group privileges are assigned for each report.

The screenshot below displays function details of the Active Projects Report – as seen in “Function Administration”.

Function Name  (1)

    • Name of the Report that users see in the Reports Section of BLUE
    • Configurable by Blue Administrator – no additional impact

URL  (2)

    • Identifies the specific Qlik report to display
    • DO NOT CHANGE  the default value unless you have been trained in updating and publishing Qlik reports
    • Sample value:
      • legacy/exclude/qlik_view.jsp?name=Active Projects
        • ‘Active Projects’ is the name of the Qlik Sheet to be displayed to the user
        • Case / Space Sensitive

Description  (3)

    • Description that users see next to the Report Name
    • Configurable by Blue Admin – no additional impact

Groups  (4)

    • Select all Groups that are allowed to view this report

Who can modify or create reports?

Customizing out-of-the-box reports and creating new reports for your users is all possible using Qlik technology. Because this requires Qlik development knowledge as well as direct access to (and an understanding of) the underlying BLUE database, all customizations to reports are carried out by our BLUE Development Operations Team and/or Professional Services.

Please contact your BLUE Software representative for more information.

What reports are included?

Here is the list of available reports. Please keep in mind that based on configuration and group-level security privileges, the list of reports available on each customer site may vary.

Note: Some of these reports may not be available for your system. For more information, please contact your administrator.

Default report name Type of report Description
Active Projects Report Qlik Active projects started within the last 12 months
Active Task View Legacy Active tasks started within a specific time period
Completed Projects Report Qlik Projects Completed within the last 12 months
Concurrent Users Report Legacy Provides information on maximum and average concurrent usage of the site on a month by month basis
File Order Report Legacy Lists all file orders that were made within a specific time period
KPI Cycle Report Qlik Measure and monitor cycle statistics / right-first-time
KPI Process Report Qlik Measure and monitor on-time statistics for projects and processes
KPI Report Legacy Provides schedule information about completed projects for measuring and monitoring project performance
Project Status Report Qlik Status of all projects (active and completed)
Rejection Reason Report Qlik Rejection reasons by approval-candidate and groups
System Audit Report Legacy Lists activities that were performed on the system, on assets, and on projects
Task Status Report Qlik Analyze tasks with different statuses across users, groups and projects
Usage report Legacy Provides usages metrics for the site
User Report Legacy Lists all users and contacts in the system
User Report Qlik List of users and contacts

Notes: The KPI Interval legacy report is no longer supported.

Active Projects Report

    • Timeliness of in-flight projects started within the last 12 months – broken down by month
    • Details include planned and actual durations for each project
    • Users can filter by dates, status,, project name and owner, and project level attributes

Active Task View

Active Task View is a report showing active projects, sub-processes, and tasks in an expandable hierarchy format, allowing you to explore and drill down to focus on tasks that you are interested in.

The Active Task View is accessible as a report from the Reports tab, with visibility based on group access.

Selecting Search Filters

In order to run an active task view, you must first select the search criteria. Based on your site configuration, you may see one or more of the following options:

    • Project Owner: A list of possible project owners of whom you’d like to see projects.
    • Template: A list of templates in the system. Enabled templates are listed first and disabled templates can be found towards the bottom of the list. Users can select multiple templates from the list.
      • Note: In addition to showing active projects, users can also select to include suspended projects. 
    • Attributes: In addition, you may be able to use attribute search filters (e.g. Region, Brand, Category, etc.).
      • Note: The report searches attributes that are homed at the project-level. Attributes that are extended up to the project level are not searched when running this report.
    • Active Tasks: You can choose to view tasks started between, on, before or after a specific date or date range. By default a date range of the last six months will be selected.

Viewing the results

Projects will be grouped based on the selected search criteria. Intentionally set values will be listed first (e.g. “Manager, Packaging” and “Blue Labs” in the above example).

Below these filters, the projects will appear in a hierarchical format, listed as:

    • Project Information, including status, project name, and owner.
      • Sub-process information, including all sub-processes in which there are active tasks.
        • Task information, including status, task name, owner, and cycle.

The Active Task View will only show the projects to which you have access.

The arrows represent the status of the project, sub-process, or task. A green arrow indicates it is “on time”, the yellow one “at risk”, and the red one indicating it is “late”. The suspended tasks or projects have a cross instead of arrows.

If, in any of the above hierarchy structure, there is more than one active item (e.g. more than one active task within a sub-process), they will be grouped within.

Go to Task

Click on any item link to open up the task in a new tab.

Refresh

Click on the Refresh button to refresh the search results.

Export to Excel

Export the report to Microsoft Excel using the Export to Excel option.

Completed Projects Report

    • Timeliness of projects completed within the 12 months – broken down by month
    • Details include planned and actual durations for each project
    • Users can filter by dates, status, project name, owner, and project level attributes

Concurrent Users Report

    • This report provides information on maximum and average concurrent usage of the site on a month by month basis.

Choose your business units and generate a report.

File Order Report

    • This report lists all files that were published and made available for download within a specific time period.

Note: This report only references files that were published directly from the Asset Library.  Files shared in the context of a project using the Share file option are not included in the report.

  • Viewing the report
    • The report is organized by per user and is further broken down by file order, which is the set of files published during a single transaction.
    • The report includes the name of the user who published the files, the date and time they were published, as well as information about the published files, including the file number, file type, file name, required item, and file size.

Export to Excel

    • Export the report to Microsoft Excel using the Export to Excel option.

KPI Cycle Report

    • Key Performance Indicators for Completed Projects
      • ‘Right First Time’ totals and percentages
      • Rejection Reasons
    • Users can filter by dates, groups, template name, task name, project name, owner, and project level attributes
    • The Candidate Name column is a list of approval candidate Ids from the template

KPI Process Report

    • Key Performance Indicators for Completed Projects
      • Timeliness percentages for Projects and Processes
    • Details include target and actual durations
    • Users can filter by dates, groups, process name, project name, owner, and project level attributes

KPI Report

    • This report provides schedule information about completed projects for measuring and monitoring project performance.

Viewing the report

    • Selecting the KPI Report opens a new KPI Report window where you can provide report parameters and view report results. When appropriate, the report results will contain links to allow you to drill down to a more granular level. The original browser session tab remains open and displays the actual schedule of the underlying process, milestone, or task as you click on them from within the report.
    • To generate a report, select one or more processes and/or tasks:
      • Processes
        • This is a list of templates, approval candidate Ids, and sub-process names from the template in the form <ReportPrefix><Sub-ProcessName>. The approval candidate Id is associated on the template’s cycle tasks.
          • For example, if the report prefix is (AAT) and the template’s sub-process name is Artwork Phase, then the Processes list would show this entry: (AAT)Artwork Phase.
      • Tasks
        • This is a list of template task names, including milestones, in the form <ReportPrefix><TaskName>.
          • For example, if the report prefix is (AAT) and the template’s task name is Upload File for Approval, then the Tasks list would show this entry: (AAT)Upload File for Approval.
    • You may be able to choose some custom field filters.
    • Select an optional process or task owner filter.

Export to Excel

    • Export the report to Microsoft Excel using the Export to Excel option.

Navigation within the KPI Report Window

    • Hyperlinks within the report will either allow you to drill down to reveal additional information in the KPI Report window, or display the actual schedule of a specific process, milestone, or task in the original browser tab.
    • Click Modify to return to the report parameters page, where you can update the selection criteria and resubmit the request for the report.
    • Click Close to return to the top level of the report.

Here is an example, with some selected processes:

About the KPI Report

When there is additional information associated with the process or task, its name is represented as a blue link in the Type column. Similarly, when there are rejected cycles, the number under the Rejected Cycles column is a blue link.

Here are some example results, showing the quantity of associated items, as well as the cycle and duration information. In the following example, the approval candidate Id called “ApprovalCandidate” is associated with 59 distinct cycles—with 7 rejected cycles for a total of 66 cycles.

Viewing the process or task summary page

Click on a blue process or task link under the Type column to view its summary. For example, here is the summary report for the approval candidate Id called “ApprovalCandidate”.

Viewing Rejection Reasons

When viewing the KPI Report, if the Rejected Cycles column has a value, click on this number to see the rejection reasons for the associated cycles. Here is an example showing the rejection reasons for the seven rejected cycles. Three cycles were rejected because of spelling errors.

Project Status Report

    • Timeliness of ALL projects in the system
    • Details include planned and actual durations for each project
    • Users can filter by dates, status, project name, owner, and project level attributes

Rejection Reason Report

    • Rejection Reasons broken down by Project, Group, and User
      • Projects with more than one approval cycle
    • Users can filter by dates, project name, groups, users, and attributes

System Audit Report

    • The system audit report lists activities that were performed on the system, on files, and on projects.

Choose some filters and get a list of activities that were performed on the selected date or date range.

Export to Excel

    • Export the report to Microsoft Excel using the Export to Excel option.

Task Status Report

    • Total and breakdown of all human-facing (non-automated) tasks.
    • Includes Active, Bypassed, Cancelled, Pending, Completed (Late), and Completed (On Time) tasks.
    • When first opened, a default bookmark is applied to only display Active Tasks. The bookmark applies a filter which is displayed at the top of the report.  To display other statuses, click on the ‘x’ to clear the default filter.
    • Task Status and Project Status columns display red (late), green (on-time) and grey (suspended) colors to indicate timeliness.
    • Users can filter by template, project and task start dates, project owner, task and project status, task name, task owner, project name, and task level attributes.
    • The Task Completed Date column is included for completed tasks and is the actual completion date.

Usage Report

    • Provides usages metrics for the site. The results are listed per business unit. The default usage report is a summary of all business units. Select the business unit for its metrics. The usage report includes metrics and for the following:
      • Total Number Of Logins
      • Total number of files that were added
      • Total number of files in the system as of <Start Date>
      • Total number of ordered files
      • Total number of downloaded files
      • Total number of initiated top-level projects
      • Total number of completed projects
      • Total number of cancelled projects
      • Total number of initiated approval cycles
      • Total number of approved cycles
      • Total number of rejected cycles
      • Total number of cancelled cycles

Viewing the report

Choose a business unit to view its metrics. Or view the default report, which lists the totals for all of the business units.

Export to Excel

    • Export the report to Microsoft Excel using the Export to Excel option.

Here is a usage report for a site with different business units.

Here is an example of a default report.

User report (legacy)

    • Lists all users and contacts in the system
  • Viewing the report
    • Search for users by entering search criteria, or export the results to Microsoft Excel.
    • Users are organized by company and display the user’s name, username, business unit, business phone, e-mail, user status, and groups they belong. The user status is the user’s log in status (whether or not they are allowed to log into the system).
    • If there are custom fields associated with a user, you can see these in the custom fields column.

Export to Excel

    • Export the report to Microsoft Excel using the Export Search Results to Excel our Export All Users to Excel option.

User Report (Qlik)

    • Lists all user accounts in the system, including Last Login and Last Activity dates
    • The total number of users is the unique number of users.
    • If a user belongs to more than one group, they will appear in this list once for each group they belong to.
    • Details include username (user login), name, business unit, business phone, email, status, company and group(s).

For more information on reports-related topics, visit these links…

For information about interactive visual Qlik reports, see Qlik Reports.