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LG Inform – Report builder

July 2013

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This document just goes through the process of building a basic report and saving it. It does not go through each component. Further quick start guides will cover each component in turn.

Report builder Log into LG Inform and click on the report builder button on the purple toolbar, you will be given an empty report canvas. There are four grey boxes which you can then select from.

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1. Report properties

You can name your report in the report properties box, as well as adding service areas and tags. This is the name that will be displayed in Search and My library of LG Inform so it is best to include enough information so you can search for your report at a later date and ensure that other users can find it when you share it.

Description – this is a free text box where you can add a description of your report which is shown in LG Inform but not on the actual report. This can be a description for yourself as a reminder what is still to be added to the report, a quick overview of what you have included, or notes to fellow users of the report.

Service areas are pre-set in LG Inform and can be added to your report as additional search terms.

Tags are free text descriptions that you can add to your report; again these are useful when searching for your report.

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2. Add logo You can add a logo to your report by clicking on the Add logo box. This will open up a light box where you can select from the logos you have previously saved into LG Inform. You cannot add multiple logos to one report, so if you need more than one logo on the top of your report, you can combine them in a jpeg and upload the combined logo to the system.

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The next stage for your report is to select from add a text box, chart, map or table. Add text box Select Add text, this will add a text box to your report canvas on the right hand side, which you can edit by clicking on the pencil icon. A light box will open up in which you can add text and edit the layout of it.

Click on save and this will be shown in your report canvas. You can edit this text at any time by clicking on the pencil icon.

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Add Chart Select Add chart and the accordion will open up on the left hand side of your screen, from which you can select the data, areas and chart type by completing each of the accordion steps. There are additional options in the accordion to allow you to customise your chosen chart.

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Firstly you need to add a metric. This is a search box so type a key word from a metric name such as GCSE, planning or waste and select from the dropdown list the metric(s) you are interested in and click Add.

If you have selected areas of interest in your preferences the list of metrics will be filtered to only display matching metrics, to temporarily ignore your selection and show all metrics, tick the Clear filter box.

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By default your chart will display the latest raw value for your chosen metric for the latest period available, you have the option to change this by clicking on the ‘show metric options’ link. Within this step you can view breakdowns of data, change the value type or the number of periods displayed.

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When you have selected the data you need, click Next and the Select Area section will expand. This is filled in with your default area, which you can change if needed. You can also select other areas if needed to show on your chart for example All English District local authorities or specific authorities such as North Yorkshire.

You also have the option at this point to create your own display group, by selecting the Create new display group option and working through the light box that opens up.

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Select Next and the available chart types will be displayed. Depending on the data and area options you have selected the appropriate chart types will be enabled. Some chart types will be greyed out if the options selected for the data are not appropriate, for example pie charts can only one years’ worth of data so if multiple years have been selected the pie chart will be greyed out and scatter charts require two metrics to be selected.

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Click on the chart type needed and it will be added to the canvas on the right.

At this point you can either go on to edit this further or save the component as it is shown. To edit click Customise further. The next section of the according will open up – Compare against. In this section users can choose to add one or more summary statistics to their chart e.g: - Minimum - Maximum - Mean - Median - 25th percentile - 75th percentile - Etc. The options show in this section will depend on the chart type selected; some chart types such as pie, bullet and gauge will have no options in this step.

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Again at this stage you can either save the component as it is or customise it further. The next customise options are for the labels and legends.

By walking through the options you can adjust axes options and adapt the chart display for example adding Area names or select Show metric source details. Within this last option you can add details about the metric below your chart for example Unit of measure or polarity. The next customise further sections looks at the colours used on your component. There are sixteen palettes that you can select from. The palettes 1-8 are predominately used for charts and where polarity for the metric is not applicable, palettes 19-16 are predominately used for maps or where polarity is applicable. If you intend to print your report in black and white we would recommend palettes 8 and 10-16 which are made specifically as they are clear when printing out in black and white. The colours are picked from the pallets in a specific order so there is the most contrast between the sections on a chart depending on the number of colours used.

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The last section of the accordion is advanced functionality and lets you add selection boxes to a component so the viewer of your report can select their own Metric; area or groups. A separate ‘how to’ guide will be produced explaining this functionality.

When you click on Finish the accordion collapses and your finished component is show on the right hand side. At any time you can edit this component further by clicking on the pencil icon on the top right.

If you have named your report you can save it at this point, otherwise if you click save you will be prompted to add a report name. The save option has two options:

Save and publish – this is the most common form of saving, selecting this option will save this version of the report to your library and will enable you to carry out other options such as printing, sharing and exporting. Publishing a report does not share the report with any other user, it will remain private to you until you decide to share it via the ‘share tool’.

Save as draft – this option allows you to create a working draft version of your report without affecting your published version.

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An example of when this could be used is when you have created a quarter 1 performance report and shared it with colleagues, over the coming weeks new data is available so you want to update your report in advance of issuing quarter 2 report but don’t want to overwrite the quarter 1 report just yet. If you save your changes as ‘draft’ this would only be visible to you until you choose to publish it as quarter 2.

When you have saved and published your report all the purple buttons will be enabled.

The options here are as follows

Preview – allows you to see the report as it would look when printed out, when you are editing the report the ratio of screen to final view is63%

New – if you have saved your report, it will close and a new empty canvas will be shown

Share – if you have published your report you then have the options to share it with individuals or groups, more details about this can be found in ‘how to share’ guide

Delete – all versions including your saved report will be deleted

Export – this allows you to export your whole report in either a PDF or RTF

Print – this opens up a new window from which you can print your report

Save – saves your report to your library

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Add Map By clicking on the Add Map button the accordion will open up for you to select your metric and area required the steps are exactly the same as there were for Add chart.

Search for and select your metric

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Search for and select your areas

Select map

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At this point you can either go on to edit ths map further or save the component as it is shown. The next section of the accordion is Compare against. In this section users can choose how maps are coloured, you can choose from the supported performance measurement scales (quantiles, equal ranges, standard deviation or custom), the number of bands to divide the map into and the comparison group to be used in these calcualtions.

Again at this stage you can either save the component as it is or customise further. The next customise options are for the labels and legends followed by colour selection.

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As with charts you can select finish at any stage and the map will be drawn on the canvas. To edit the map further you can click on the pencil icon on the top right.

Drawing maps is a very data rich process to get the outline and layers of the map so in older browsers such as IE7 this might take a few seconds.

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Add Table The final component type available is the Add table option. Again by working through the accordion you can add the metrics and areas to your table and customise them as needed in the same manner you would charts and maps. One noticeable difference is within the customise label and layout step, tables are designed to be dynamic and the Group axis options allow you to specify which data is displayed in rows and which data is displayed in columns along with the order of that data. Full details of all the customisation possible is available in ‘how to’ guide for tables.

Unlike other components which dynamically resize, tables are by default 30 rows long and you will need to manually adjust it to fit your contents. If your table is longer than the page scrollbars will be enabled on screen but the table will print out in full when exported. If your table is wider than the width of the page you can adjust the columns using the purple arrows.

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Resizing, moving and hover text The report page is set to be optimised for A4 printing but within this you have control to resize charts and maps to fit your needs. There are intelligent controls included that will alert you if you have overlapping content or if it crosses a page break. If a component covers a page break or another component it will be highlighted with a red border.

All components must fit within the A4 template to ensure that printing is not compromised. All content added to a report can be moved using the drag and drop functionality, simply place your cursor over the yellow bar at the top of the component you want to move and the cursor will change, click and drag the component to its new location.

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If you want to move a whole page you can do this using the move page buttons at the side of the report canvas.

To resize a component click on the dashed line round the component to move the edge of it. To move from page to page click on the header of the component, when your curser changes to a four pointed arrow hold your left mouse button down and drag the component round your report canvas. All charts and maps now support hover text this will uniquely describe any bar, column, line or point that you hover over.

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Other functionality of the report builder When you have saved your report the following options are now available - Previous versions Every time you save your report the system automatically saves a new version of your report. Once a report has been saved for the first time the system also autosaves your report after every change. To access previous versions or autosaves click on the previous versions button and a lightbox will open showing you your report history, click on any of the time stamped versions to load that into the report builder.

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For more information please contact

Ian Carbutt

Programme Manager

Local Government Association

Local Government House

Smith Square

London SW1P 3HZ

Email: lginform@local.gov.uk

Telephone: 020 7664 3135

Contact the Local Government Association Telephone: 020 7664 3000 Email: info@lga.gov.uk Website: www.local.gov.uk © Local Government Association, October 2011 For a copy in Braille, Welsh, larger print or audio, please contact us on 020 7664 3000. We consider all requests on an individual basis.