Change History Reports

Content Options

The following options are available in the Content area for Change History reports.

Report Item Type
Contains the primary table for the selected application and any auxiliary tables for which you have privileges. Select the table that contains the information for the report.
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.
Select Columns to Display
Select fields to display in your report results. The available fields are Action Type, Changed Value, Item Changed, New Value, Prior Value, Timestamp of Change, and User Making Change. You can also rearrange the order in which these fields appear in the report.
Set Custom Field Widths
By default, the width of field columns is set automatically based on the size of your browser window and the number of fields displayed on the report. You can force the column for a selected field to be larger or smaller by specifying an absolute width in pixels.

To change the display width of a field, select a field in the left pane, and then click the Set Custom Field Widths link to specify a display with in pixels for the field. You can then move the field to the right pane.
Start Date/Time
Set the start date and time for changes to items that should be returned in the report. You must provide a start date before saving or running the report.
End Date/TimeSet an end date and time that falls after the start date. If you do not provide an end date, the current date and time is used as the end date. Only items that experienced a change between the start date and the end date are returned in the report.
Tip: Use Date/Time keywords, such as startof_today or endof_lastweek, as start and end dates.

Search Filters

Search filters enable you to narrow your search for items. Depending on your privileges, you can define basic conditions or Advanced SQL Conditions.

Note: You can change the type of condition the report uses, but your search criteria is not converted. For example, if you specify an Advanced SQL condition, and then select the Use Basic Conditions option, your Advanced SQL is not converted to a basic condition.

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.
Use Advanced SQL Conditions (on-premise customers only)	SQL (Structured Query Language) is an industry-standard language for selecting records from a database. For detailed information about using Advanced SQL conditions in SBM reports, refer to Using Advanced SQL Conditions in SBM Reports.

Sorting Options

Sort options enable you to sort search results based on values in selected fields. For example, you can sort items by the user who made changes to items.

Tip: The fields you select for sorting are independent of the fields you select to display. For best results, you may want to display the fields you choose for sorting. For details, refer to Content Options.

The following sorting options are available:

Sort by/Then by – From the drop-down lists, select the fields for which you want to sort report results based on field values. Fields available for sorting are Action Type (Grouping only), Changed Value, Item Changed, Timestamp of Change, and User Making Change.
Ascending / Descending – Select one of these options for each field to specify its sort order.

Additional Options

The following options are available in the Additional Options area of the Change History report form. These options can be considered "advanced" report options.

Remove line breaks from memo/text fields
Select this check box to remove line breaks from fields such as Prior Value and Change Value. This option is useful if you plan to export the report data another application, such as Microsoft Excel.
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: <Some Text>.
Optional HTML Template
This drop-down list contains HTML templates for customizing the look of your report. Provided templates include excellist.htm, which improves the display of Listing report results when they are exported (by right-clicking the report output and then selecting Export to Microsoft Excel), and massselectlist.htm, which provides buttons at the top of the page, enabling you to select or clear the check boxes for all items in the results list. Your administrator can customize report templates, and the templates in the list may or may not apply to the type of report you are creating. Select the template from the drop-down list.
Note: This option is available for applicable report types in the SBM User Workspace and for Listing reports in Serena Work Center.

If you change the HTML template in a report that is pinned to a menu or on a dashboard in Work Center, the change is not reflected in the affected report. You must re-pin or re-add the updated report after you save the template change.

Results

Change History reports return a line for each change made to each field based on the report criteria. Each primary or auxiliary item that changed may contain multiple entries in the report depending on the changes made to items and the report criteria.

The list of item history changes displays the fields you selected when you create or modify a Change History report. If you did not select specific fields, the User Making Change, Prior Value, and Action Type fields display.

When you run the report, the first field selected to appear in the report form shows as a link. For example, if the User Making Change field is selected first, then the user name appears as a link. Click the link to display detailed information about the item.

The following fields may appear in the Change History report:

Field	Description
Action Type	Displays the last action performed on the item.
Changed Value	Displays each changed field as a separate item in the report.
Item Changed	By default, this column displays the Item ID and title of the changed primary or auxiliary item. The appearance of this column may vary depending on settings made by your administrator.
Prior Value	Displays the value of the field before it was changed.
New Value	Displays the new value for the field.
User Making Change	Displays the name of the user who changed the field.
Timestamp of Change	Displays the time the field was changed. Note: If you do not have privileges to view data from specific fields, the information appears as asterisks in the report.