In Reporting and Analytics > Reporting > Classic Reports, you can open existing reports or create ones. The tab functionality of the report designer allows you to open and work on more than one report at a time, and you can enable automatic previews to view sample data that is updated each time you make a change.
Dayforce opens a new tab for each report that you open. The tab header contains a pencil icon (
) to indicate that the tab is in edit mode. You can add columns and filters, specify group by and sort by on fields, add totals, and specify default layout settings.
When you open a report in the report designer, Dayforce loads a preview of the report data. A message at the top of the screen reminds you that the data displayed is a limited sample. You can click the X to the right of the message to close it; the message is closed until after you log out and log in again.
If you don’t want to wait for the preview to load, you can skip loading the preview by clicking the Click to Cancel link:
The report designer allows you to update the preview as you make changes. Click the Preview button at any time to view a refreshed sample of records. After you make changes to the report, click Preview again to refresh the view. You can also click the arrow beside Preview to configure the following options:
- Enable Auto-Preview: Select this option and Dayforce updates the sample display every time you make a change. When auto-preview isn’t enabled, you must click Preview to update the sample data.
- Set Filter Values for Preview: Click this option to adjust the way the data is filtered in the preview.
At any time while editing your report, you can click Refresh to revert your changes. When you click Refresh, Dayforce reverts the report back to the last time you saved it. This includes removing filters, groupings, and totals that you added since the last save.
The Reporting feature includes an online tips page that outlines some of the best practices of report writing. You can open the Tips for Report Writing screen by clicking Tips, which is available on the landing page at Reporting and Analytics > Reporting > Classic Reports and in the report designer when you’re editing a report:
When you click Tips, the Tips for Report Writing screen opens in a new browser tab. It includes information about the following:
- Eliminating duplicate records in reports.
- Using parameters correctly.
- Checking join types if your report doesn't retrieve the expected number of records.
- Understanding the data security that is applied when Dayforce generates a report.
The following sections contain more information on the following actions that you can carry out in the report designer: