Reporting → Using Custom Reports → Report Reference → Distribution Reports → Advanced Distribution Reports

Advanced Distribution Reports

Distribution reports summarize categories of items. For example, you can create a report totaling the type of primary items in a project and show subtotals against the states of the primary items. This report is useful for managers who need totals, counts, or summarized information in an easy-to-read format. Distribution reports appear as tabular or graphical reports.

Content Options

The following options are available in the Content area for Advanced Distribution reports.
  • Report Item Type

    Indicates the application the report is based on.

  • Report Project

    For reports based on primary tables, the project you select when creating a report determines which items are returned in your report. The project selection also determines where the report is stored and which users can access the report. For example, if you select Project A, only users who have privileges to run reports in Project A can run the report.

    For details, refer to Selecting a Report Project.

  • Report Style

    Choose to display your report as a tabular report or as an area chart, bar chart, horizontal bar chart, line chart, percentile stacked bar chart, scatter chart, stacked bar chart, or tape chart.

    Consider the following information when you select a report style:

    • For graphical reports, labels may be truncated for fields that contain long selection values.
    • If you select a tape chart and your data set contains more than five items, the lines in the chart may appear as black.
    • The tape chart, area chart, and line chart styles do not display any data if the X axis contains only a single data point. For example, if you create a Distribution report, select a project with no sub-projects, and then set Project as the Row entry, no data appears for these styles. If you select a project with sub-projects (and there are items in the sub-projects), data is shown.
  • Trend Criteria
    Use these options to specify Advanced Distribution criteria:
    • Group Rows By

      Select any selection field by which to group the rows in the report.

    • Group Columns By

      Select any selection field and the values to be used for the major columns in the report. You can combine multiple values for use in a single major column and you can choose a label for the column.

      CAUTION:
      Do not specify the same value for more than one column; otherwise, some of the report data will be incorrect.
    • Divide Columns By

      Optionally, select any selection field by which to subdivide the major columns into subcolumns. Then pick a maximum of three values from the Limit Field Values option. These values determine the subcolumns. The remaining values are combined in a column named Other.

  • Sum Totals By
    Enables you to see the sum of certain field values rather than count each item returned by the report as one. The following table lists the applicable field types and examples.
    Field Type Notes Example
    Date/Time Applies to Elapsed Time fields only. Use to track the amount of work spent on a set of items, such as a team's work for a sprint.
    Numeric Use to track the amount of money spent on a set of items or the number of sprint points allocated for a set of items.
    Single Selection Applies only to weights assigned to Single Selection field values. If weights are not applied, each item is counted as a single item.

    Contact your administrator to learn about the weights assigned to Single Selection fields in your system.

    		 A Priority field may have these values and assigned weights: of High - 100, Medium - 50, and Low - 10. Each item returned by the report is counted using the weight from its Priority field selection.

Grouping Field Values

When you select the Combine Field Values option underneath Group Columns By option, the Group Field Values option box displays.

Enter a label for your group of field values (for example, Completed Items), and then choose the field values that you want to compose the group.

To add a field value to the group, move the value from the list box on the left to the list box on the right. To remove a field value from the group, move the value out of the box on the right. Use the arrow buttons to move field values back and forth until the list box on the right contains exactly what you want.

Note: The list of available values is determined by the project that you have selected and whether you have selected the sub-projects option in the Search Filter area.

To save your changes, click Change; to cancel the operation, click Cancel.

Search Filters

Select the following options for creating a search filter for your report:

Option Description
Include Items From Sub-projects Select this check box to include items from sub-projects of the project selected from the Report Project list. This option is not available for reports created against auxiliary tables.
Show Search Filter In Results Select this option to display your Search Filter settings in the output of the report. This option allows report viewers to see which filters are used in the report. It is also helpful when you select to print a report, since it displays which Query At Runtime parameters were selected.
Limit selections using field dependencies and project selections

Select this check box to use the project's field dependency rules.

For example, in Project A, the Priority field has a dependency with the Severity field. The dependency states that when the Severity field is Critical, then the Priority field must be 1 or 2.

You create a Details report on Project A and add a Search Specification of Severity in Critical. Then, you add a Search Specification for the Priority field. The available Field Values for the Priority field will be limited to 1 and 2.

Note: Changing this setting does not affect values that have already been selected.
Use Basic Conditions Allow you to define a search filter by making selections from the list of fields. For detailed information about using basic conditions, refer to Using Basic Conditions in SBM Reports.

Additional Options

The following options are available in the Additional Options area of the Advanced Distribution report form.
  • Use Logarithmic Scale (Graphs only)

    Select this check box to apply a logarithmic scale to your report. You may want to do this to reduce your report results to a manageable range if they cover a large range of values. This option only applies to certain report styles, such as line, scatter, and bar charts.

  • Show Whole Rows and Columns of Zero (0)

    By default, Distribution reports do not show rows that have only zeros as values. Select this check box to show the rows that only have zeros as values.

  • Show All Labels

    Some display labels are skipped if a large number of values is returned on the horizontal axis. Select this check box to show all labels. If the labels are difficult to read, clear this check box to show fewer labels. This option does not apply to tabular reports.

  • Show Chart Values

    Select this check box to show the number of items returned for each row on the graphical report. If a large number of values are returned, they may be difficult to read. You can clear this check box to show fewer values. To see values, hover your mouse over a bar or pie segment to view the number of items returned. This option does not apply to tabular reports.

  • Thresholds

    Thresholds allow you to apply visual indicators to your report that inform you when data rises above or falls below numbers you specify. Apply a color to each threshold that appears in the background of the report.

    You can set a high threshold, a low threshold, or both. Thresholds cannot be used with percentile stacked bar charts or pie charts. The following threshold options are available:

    • Set High Threshold Greater Than – Type a number that indicates a high threshold when the report data is greater than that number. For a report that tracks the number of items submitted by particular users, you may want to set a high threshold that indicates when over 75 items have been submitted.

    • Set Low Threshold Less Than – Type a number that indicates a low threshold when the report data is lower than that number. For a report that tracks the number of items submitted by particular users, you may want to set a low threshold that indicates when fewer than 10 items have been submitted.

    • Using Color – Click the Color link for each threshold to open the Select Color dialog box and select a color for each threshold. You must select a color if you set a high or low threshold. The color for each threshold appears in the background of the report.

  • Footer
    Optionally, supply a footer for your report.
    Note: The footer renders some common HTML tags such as <i>, <b>, and <font>. However, this means that character entity references such as >, <, ", and & are not encoded in the footer. Therefore, in order to display <Some Text> in the footer, you must send the following encoded sequence: &lt;Some Text&gt;.
  • Choose Colors for Values

    Choose custom colors for values shown in graphical reports. Values are based on the row and column fields you selected on the Content tab. Depending on the report style, color may be applied to row values, column values, or both. If you do not select colors, random colors are used.

Drill-Down Display Options

The following options are available in the Drill-Down Display Options area of the report form. They enable you to specify which fields to include in the drill-down reports as well as column widths and sorting criteria.
Note:
  • Drill-Down Display Options may not be available if your administrator has disabled Flash components or in browsers that do not support HTML5.
  • You cannot drill down into a report when it is contained in a Drill Through report and used to drive another report. See Drill Through Reports for more information.
The following table describes each of the fields that you use to specify drill-down display options:
Field Description
Value Display Format Select this check box to use the default columns for the drill-down report. Clear the check box to enable the Select Columns to Display feature.
Select Columns to Display Select the fields that you want to appear as columns in the drill-down reports. To select or deselect a field, move it to or from the right-hand box using the arrow buttons.
Set Custom Field Widths Optionally, specify the width (in pixels) for the columns in the drill-down reports.
Sorting Select the fields on which you want to sort the data in the drill-down reports.

Results

Advanced Distribution reports return a tabular representation of items based on your report criteria, including totals.

The following information and options appear with Advanced Distribution report results.

Field Description
Show TSV

Click this button to open a window that displays the report in a tab-delimited format. This enables you to copy the report information and paste it into a spread sheet application, such as Microsoft Excel.

Note: This option is not available for Rich Graphical Reports. Alternatively, you can choose the Excel option to export report results.
Drill-Down Links Distribution reports can be clicked to display detailed information about the report results. For example, if your report contains a count of items submitted by a specific set of users, each count of items submitted by a user appears as a link (tabular display) or clickable slice (graphical display). Click the count number to display a Listing report of those items. Zero counts do not appear as links. To return to the original report after viewing the Listing report, click the Back to Results link.
Tip: If links are not available on the drill-down report, simplify the report specifications on your originating report.
Note: For Rich Graphical Reports, you must disable slicing before you can click to drill-down.
Thresholds If you configured thresholds on the report form, the color you indicated for each threshold displays on the report background.
Note: If you do not have privileges to view data from specific fields, the information appears as asterisks in the report.

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