The Parts of a Report

An AOS report is comprised of the following parts:

Cover

Base reports that are designed to be shown outside your company (for example, to agencies and advertisers), such as the Plan report, can have a cover.

The cover is the first page in PDF report output, and the first tab in Excel report output. You specify whether you want the report to have a cover via the Cover Page action in the Format Report step of the Report Wizard panel.

Banner, Header, and Footer

The page banner is at the top of every page. It can contain text, and logos or other images. (Images to be used in reports can be uploaded via the System Configuration module.)

The block header is at the top of each primary block of the report. A primary block can extend over one or more pages, and always begins on a new page, so the block header is at the top of a PDF page, or the top of an Excel tab, below the banner. The header is shaded gray.

You specify the content of the banner, and the content of the header, by selecting which fields they will contain. You do this in the Header action of the Format Report step of the Report Wizard panel. You can remove fields from the banner and from the header if they are prefixed with a blue X. You cannot remove them if they are prefixed with a gray X: these fields are required.

If a banner or header includes fields that also appear in the body of the report, such as start and end dates or block name, the banner or header on a given page displays the field values that appear in the block of the report immediately below them.

Page footers, unlike page banners and block headers, are not configurable. They always display the name of the user who ran the report, the page number, and the date and time that the report was run.

Columns

Columns display a report's detail data. This is the core of a report.

If you select more columns than will comfortably fit on the width of a single page in PDF output, AOS will horizontally paginate the report, putting the columns that went past the page's right margin on an additional page. (The Flowchart base report is an exception to this: AOS does not currently horizontally paginate wide Flowchart reports. It instead reduces their column width and font size to fit all columns onto a single page.)

Sorting and Aggregating

You can sort and aggregate (total and subtotal) the detail data found in a report's columns. You can nest your sorts.

You sort and aggregate using one of the following methods:

  • Sections and groups (used by the Plan and Sales Revenue base reports).

  • Groupings and sortings (used by the Flowchart, Product Definition, and Ratecard base reports).

These two methods are mutually exclusive. Some base reports use one method, and some use the other method.

The outermost sort (the outermost section in a Plan report, or the outermost grouping in a Flowchart, Product Definition, or Ratecard report) is a primary block. A primary block starts on a new page in PDF output, and on its own tab in Excel output, and gets its own block header at the top of the new page or at the top of tab, and generates a new total row at the bottom of the block.

Sections and Groups

Sections and groups are used to sort and aggregate Plan and Sales Revenue reports.

You can specify sections, and can specify different groups within each section. This enables you to sort data differently, and to a different level of granularity, in each section.

You can subtotal within a group. The innermost group functions as the report's detail row.

Groupings and Sortings

Groupings and sortings are used to sort and aggregate Flowchart, Product Definition, and Ratecard reports.

Groupings and sortings sort a report's data consistently, to the same level of granularity, throughout the entire report.

Each grouping has a grouping header and footer. The footer is the Total row.

The field you specify for a grouping subtotals the detail data for each value of that field.

You can select any column for a sorting as long as it hasn't already been used in a grouping.