ThinkingRock Forum

Some concerns/questions on printing Action Reports:

1. It seems quite redundant to have to set up the Review Actions screen to get a list I want to review (pick a Context, check off tick boxes, pick a future period, pick an order for one or more columns) and then have to do it again when I set up a report - and I cannot even take advantage of column ordering! Why can't the reports be set up as essentially a "print screen" equivalent of what I just set in the Review Actions screen? When I am trying to get reports of each context, that is a lot of settings - and I have to preview each report to make sure I didn't make an error.

2. As I posted previously when you requested input on reports, I believe that the actions with dates should be first in order in the report - especially so that the past due actions are at the top of the report. Having past due actions after Do ASAP actions does not seem right to me. And I definitely do not understand why "Inactive actions" are second on the order list ahead of both scheduled and delegated actions. Inactive actions should be last or second to last - just ahead of Done actions at best.

3. The report would be much more functional if the actions could be sorted on dates first, rather than scheduled actions vs. delegated actions. Again, when I am reviewing the action list, I want past due actions at the top - regardless of whether I am late or some delegate is late.

4. After all that good work setting up dates in various colors on the screens - why is the report saved in black and white so that it prints in black and white? This just compounds the issue of past due actions not being at the top of the report. They are farther down in the report without even the color-coded date to highlight them.

5. I understand that you intentionally changed the report generation to save the pdf files, but this will generate a huge number of files for those of us who print reports frequently - plus the need to do extra work to clean out those files.

Sorry for all the concerns, but for those of us who print and use the reports, the reports need to be as functional as the screens. I was expecting reports that matched the screens as viewed.

Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback. That's why we released a beta version.

Point 1: we are now thinking of having a separate report which will use what you have on the screen (only for the new Actions screen).

Point 2 / 3: we are now thinking of keeping the actions by context report (changing slightly the order within context) and producing a new report which will have the actions by date, with Inactive last.

Point 4: we are now thinking of adding a user preference for colour in reports.

Point 5: originally, we saved the report/export under the same name but then if user left the report/export open, it was not overwritten. We could do a cleanup of the output directory at user request, or when TR is start up, or cleanup all files older than a user defined period (1day, 1 week, etc)? Would you have another suggestion?

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Claire
ThinkingRock Analyst and Tester

I don't have another suggestion - I like your "cleanup all files older than a user defined period (1day, 1 week, etc)" idea. My personal preference would be to go out to four weeks like your "up to" selections for the report so that you could maintain a few reports as desired.

Thanks!

Is it possible to generate the export report in .txt format?
I am asking for that for 2 main reasons:
1- Being a vim user I prefer textfiles.
2- In my Linux Debian I can't open pdf reports (neither kpdf or evince).

If it is a bug, please, excuse me for posting it in the wrong forum.

Hugo

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Hugo Sanchez
DAG Consultores
www.dagconsultores.com.ni