Customizing PDF Reports

BigTime houses it's data in a system that makes custom reporting easy. While the product ships with a built-in Reporting Wizard tool for customizing Tabular reports, users can use Microsoft Access to edit any of the PDF reports in the system.

This section will show you how to get to the BigTime database, and we'll show you how to create custom PDF reports that you can import right into the system for anyone to see.

Keep in mind that you can create reports from your BigTime data using any ODBC-compliant program (Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel, Crystal Reports, etc.). This are of the system guide will focus on creating custom PDF reports that can be integrated back into the reporting screens, so that your users can get to them right from the BigTime screens they're used to using.

BigTime's custom reports appear right alongside the standard set of BigTime reports, and your users can print them and download them, just like BigTime's standard reports. You can even allow a user to specify date/period settings, staff/project selections or sort order options.

To create custom PDF reports, you'll follow three simple steps:

• Create a Template File. Templates can be created from any of the standard reports that ship with BigTime. You'll use one of those reports as a "jumping off" point, and then you'll edit that report once you create a template from it.
• Edit your Report Template. You can edit the report format, the information contained in the report, or both. Templates can be edited from any machine with Microsoft Access (2003 or higher) installed.
• Publish Your Template. Once you've finished editing your report, you'll "publish" it, so your entire company can see it. You do that by uploading your template file to BigTime. The system stores custom reports in a special repository that is preserved when you run updates to BigTime.