Custom Report Example - Name and Photograph Report

Objective:

In this example, we will show you how to include photographs from Personal Profiles on a report. This example produces a list of committee members and their photographs. This information could also apply if you want to include family pictures in a report.

Result:

Steps:

1. To begin, start by navigating to the Activities & Skills module, select the Other Output option and then finally Custom Reports. When asked whether to run reports for “Activities” or “Offices Served” select Activities.

   

   1. If you are using a version prior to 11, there will be no other output option; the Custom Reports option will be directly under the Activities & Skills module.
2. The next step will be creating a new query and a title to go with it. This step will be different depending on whether you have created a custom report in the past or not.
   1. If you have NOT created a custom report in the past, the system will immediately prompt you for a report title. Simply enter the desired title and click OK, this will bring up the query builder for the next step.
   2. If you HAVE created a custom report in the past, you will be brought to an existing page of all your custom reports. Simply click the Add button and enter the desired title and click OK, this will bring up the query builder for the next step.
3. Now we will need to create the filter for the query.
   • From the "Step 1: Pick a field" tab, select Activity Number (called Skill Number in versions prior to 11).
   • From the "Step 2: Pick an Operator" tab, select Equal to number
   • From the “Step 3: Enter a Value” tab, select Ask Later down towards the bottom left. This option will allow you to run the report for a number of different activities depending on the current needs.
   • Once satisfied with the query, select done near the bottom right to move onto the next step.

   

4. At this point, you will be prompted: Do you want to run this query now? Click Yes. Here we will need to define the output fields. Do so by simply double clicking on the desired fields; this will move them to the included section. Select Last Name, First Name and Profile Picture from the “fields to pick from” section.

   

5. An optional step would be to set the sort order. If you want the report to be displayed in alphabetical order, click on the Edit Sort Order button near the bottom. Select just the Last Name, First Name field to sort alphabetically. When you are finished, click on Done.
6. Now we need to specify the output type. From the Query Overview window, select Pick Output Type at the top right of this window. Now select Report in Form Layout. Then click Done.

   

   Note: We are choosing Form Layout because the default output type is a single line, columnar report. With this type of layout, depending on the field widths and the number of fields you select, they may not all appear on the report layout.

7. Now click on Run Query and enter the desired Activity or Skill number when prompted. This will determine which activity the results are for.

   

8. PowerChurch Plus will now display a screen titled Setup for Column Layout Report. Click on Start Report. This is the final required step. This will prompt you to print the custom report.
9. An optional step would be to modify the way the report looks. For example, we could remove the Last Name, First Name, and Profile Picture labels. To do so, click on Run Query again, and enter the desired Activity or Skill number to get to the Setup for Column Layout window. From here, select Edit Form. This will bring up the Report Designer Screen. Here we can modify quite a lot of things.
   1. For this example, we will remove the Last Name, First Name, and Profile Picture labels and align the pictures and names to the left-hand side.
      • Start by selecting both the Last Name, First Name, and Profile Picture labels and hitting the Delete key.

        

      • Next, we can select the Last Name, First Name text labeled as “last_first” and drag it to the left side.
      • Similarly, we can select the big gray square which represents the profile picture and drag it to the left side.
      • Once done, we can click on File, Save, and Close.

        

   2. Now our modified report will look something like this: