Generating a Report Database

Transcript

In this video, we're going to discuss how to generate a report database from with OnTime. A report database can be used in other third-party reporting applications such as Crystal Reports or even Microsoft Access Reporting, to generate reports in the way that you need.

Generating reports in OnTime is done through the OnTime Management Suite program. This will create a mdb file or a Microsoft Access Database file on the hard-drive, which we can then use in our third-party tools or even within OnTime software.

Let me show you how this is done. Within OnTime Management Suite, I'm going to go to the Data tab at the top and choose Generat Report Database in this Reports section. When I click that, it's going to ask me to confirm because this process initially will take some time to complete. During this period, it will create the database, apply the schema, and transfer all of the data that I currently have on my desktop into this mdb file.

In the future, if I want to update this data with the most recent information that's available, I will be able to click on the Synchronize Report Database option instead. Generate Report Database will always create one from scratch, synchronize will only add the differences since I last syncronized or created the data file.

While these button are dimmed out in grey, that means that the report database is currently being created. If I want to see the progress of that, I can go down here to my navigation bar and choose the Reports section. I'll notice that it reports that it's currently synchronizing and at 51%. Since this can take some time, I'm going to pause the video and we'll come back when it's completed.

The process has been completed and our report database has been generated. Now, how do we access it so that we can do something with it? To do that, go up to the top again, under the Data tab, to the Data File Management button. Click that and on the window that opens, you'll notice an option to Open data file location. When you click that, it will open a Windows Explorer window that allows us to navigate to this Reports folder. You should have this reports folder named as "Reports_[yourcompanyID]" We'll open that folder and find an mdb file included. This will be named "OnTime_[yourcompanyId]" so you'll be able to use the mdb file wherever you need to in third-party applications. Remember, if you just want to synchronize to changes that have occured in this mdb file since you last synced, you can do so by clicking on this Synchronize Report Database button up here.