Estimated Backlog Trend Reports

Content Options

The following options are available in the Content area for Estimated Backlog Trend 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.
Total By
Choose to increment results in days, weeks, months, or quarters. The date and time selected as a start date determines the beginning of the increment period. For example, if you specify Feb. 15 as a start date and select Quarters from the Increment drop-down list, report results are organized by quarter beginning with Feb. 15. For monthly increments, if you select a start date that does not apply to all months, such as Jan. 31, that date is only used when it applies. In addition, the specified end date is increased when needed to reflect an entire time period. If your last column starts at 3/30/2013 at 5 a.m. and you selected a monthly increment, the end date for the last column is 4/30/2013 at 5 a.m. For details on selecting start and end times for Trend reports, refer to Search Filter.
Time Period
Specify a time period for the report. You can either specify a fixed period using a date range or you can specify a time period based on a number of days, weeks, or months that have passed prior to running the report.
- Fixed Period
  - Start Date
    This field is required; however, the time of day is optional. Click the calendar icon to select a date, enter a date specification using the format indicated below the input field, or click Date/Time Keywords to use date values that are recalculated instead of a fixed date when the report is executed. You can also type custom values, such as Minus 5 or Plus 5 (with a different number, if desired) to use custom plus and minus values.
    
    Select the Query At Runtime check box to require users to enter the Start Date when the report is executed.
  - End Date
    This field is optional. If you do not specify an end date, the report uses the current date. Click Date/Time Keywords to use date values that are recalculated instead of a fixed date when the report is executed.
    
    Select the Query At Runtime check box to require users to enter the End Date when the report is executed. You can also type custom values, such as Minus 5 or Plus 5 (with a different number, if desired) to use custom plus and minus values.
- Relative Period
  - Last
    Enter the number of preceding days, weeks, or months to include in the report results.
  - Future
    Enter the number of upcoming days, weeks, or months to include in the report results.
Estimated Completion Date
Select the Date/Time field to be used as the estimated completion date.
Limit Time Period by Estimated Completion Date
Select this check box to reduce the future period for the report using the actual estimated completion dates. For example, if you specify a future period of two months, and the Estimated Completion Date value for current items is only two weeks, the report will be truncated to two weeks in the future instead of two months.
Velocity Calculation Period
Enter the number of preceding days to use to calculate the velocity. The velocity is the amount of items closed in this time period.
Milestones
Optional. Select the relational field that points to the auxiliary table containing milestones, and then select the Date/Time field from the referenced auxiliary table. One vertical line appears for each milestone within the results.
Group By
Optional. If you select a field by which to group items, one trend line appears for each value for that field that occurs within the results. For example, if you select the Submitter field, one trend line appears for each submitter of items returned by the query.

Search Filter

Search filters enable you to narrow your search for items.

Important: When using search filters, remember that trend reports are based on the current values of the item. For example, if your report filters on Active items, and the report shows the following row for High Severity:

	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Current Week
High Severity	3	4	4	5

If you close a currently active item that was submitted in Week 1, then the report will change as follows:

	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Current Week
High Severity	2	3	3	4

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 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. Changing this setting does not affect values that have already been selected. Restriction: Dependencies are only honored for fields that have the Allow searching option selected in the field definition.
Basic Conditions	When you select a field from the Fields drop-down list, the Operator drop-down list contains values appropriate for that field, and the list box underneath the list of field values contains the possible values for that field. In some cases, you see a search icon, which you can use to filter the list of values. Select an operator, and then select the value or values that constitute your search criterion. Note: If there are arrow buttons and a second list box to hold field values, you can either use the arrow buttons to move values that you want in your criterion into the right-hand box, or you can multi-select the values in the left-hand box; however, do not use both mechanisms at once. Click OK to save your criterion.

Additional Options

The following options are available in the Additional Options area of the Estimated Backlog Trend 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 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 Anchors
Select this check box to easily show or hide the data points for line charts. This option is always enabled for scatter charts. You can use this option in combination with Show Chart Values to view data points and values simultaneously.
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.
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>.
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, pie charts, doughnut charts, heatmap charts, or radar 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.
Choose Colors for "Group By" field
Choose custom colors for values for the Group By field you selected on the Content tab. If you do not select colors, random colors are used.
Choose Colors for "Milestones" field
Choose custom colors for values for the Milestones field you selected on the Content tab. 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
Use 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

Estimated Backlog Trend reports return a line representation of your report criteria.

The following information and options display with Estimated Backlog Trend report results.

Field	Description
Date/Time Labels	Labels for the date/time columns on the report depend on the time increment you reported on. The local time zone is shown for the time zone specified in the user profile for the user running the report.
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.
Trend Lines	A special trend line displays the current velocity of item completion based on the configured previous period and continues the line into the future. If the velocity is zero, no trend line appears.
Vertical Lines	If configured, vertical lines show the milestones overlaid on the report results.