Create reports

You can use either the Report Wizards or the Report Designer to build reports. Reports

• Formatted Report Wizard Guides you through the steps of building and running a formatted report.
• Text Report Wizard Guides you through the steps of building and running a text report.
• Report Designer Lets you manually design your own formatted reports. You can create reports with the same content using either the Formatted Report Wizard or the Report Designer. The Report Designer gives you more flexibility—for example, you can add a header or footer.

For example, here is a an excerpt from a report created using the Formatted Report Wizard. It shows a summary of the codes in the project, the files that were coded to the codes, as well as the number of coding references and coding coverage.

Create a formatted report using the Wizard

• On the Share tab, click the New Formatted Report, click New Formatted Report via Wizard, then use the Wizard to build your report as follows:

How would you like to build your report?

Choose whether you want to build your report from:

• A view—A report consists of information that is pulled from the underlying data of your project. The fields you can include on your report depend on the 'view' of the data that you choose. For example, the Code view includes most of the fields to do with codes such as code name, description or creator.
• A text report—You can also base your report on the criteria from an existing text report in your project. NVivo provides a number of predefined text reports, but you can also build your own.

Which fields do you want on your report?

If you are building a report based on a view, you can choose the fields you want on your report, for example—file name, type and coding coverage.

• Select a field from the Available fields list and click the right arrow > to add it to the report. The fields you can choose depend on the type of View you selected in the previous step of the wizard.
• The order of the Selected fields from top to bottom determines the order in the report from left to right. To change the order—select a field and then click the up arrow or the down arrow.
• You can choose Summary Options for each field in your report. Use this option when you want to display calculations—for example, count, sum, average—rather than every record for that field.

If you are building your report based on an existing text report, the fields are automatically selected for you.

Do you want to filter your report?

If you are building a report based on a view, you can filter the data that is displayed in the report. To create a filter:

1. Click the Add button.
2. Click in the first empty box and select the field you want to filter on.
3. Click in the next box and select the type of filter—do you want to filter anything that 'equals' the specified text or is 'greater than' a specified value?
4. Click the Select box to choose a parameter or leave the default if you want to prompt the user for a value when they run the report.

If you are building your formatted report based on a text report, this step is omitted.

Do you want to add any grouping levels?

In this step, you can specify grouping levels for your report. Information is often easier to understand when it is divided into groups. For example, you could specify grouping by file type. All audio files would be listed in one group, all document files in another group, and so on.

You can also click Group Options and specify any summary values that you want to display in the report. For example, you could display a total number of coding references for each group. You can also specify whether you want the totals to display above or below each group.

What sort order do you want for detail records?

You can specify up to four levels of sorting in either ascending or descending order. For example, if you are reporting on your codes, you might want to sort in descending order of coding references to display the most coded codes at the top.

How would you like to lay out your report?

If your report includes grouping levels, you can choose Stepped, Block, or Outline layout. Otherwise, you can choose between Columnar and Tabular. As you click on the different options, you can see an example in the preview window. Experiment to find out which layout works best with your data.

You can also choose Portrait or Landscape orientation.

What style would you like?

You can choose one of five styles for your report. As you click on the different options, you can see an example in the preview window.

What name do you want for your report?

Enter a name for the report. You can also add a description and a title.

Select the Open report in Report Designer check box if you want to modify the report before you run it—for example, you might want to add a logo to the report. If you do not select this check box, NVivo runs your report when you click Finish, and then displays the results in Detail View.

The report is stored in the Reports folder and you can run the report again as your project progresses.

Create a text report using the Wizard

On the Share tab, click New Text Report, then use the Wizard to build your report as follows:

From which view would you like to build your report?

A text report consists of information that is pulled from the underlying data of your project. The fields you can include on your report depend on the 'view' of the data that you choose. Experiment by selecting a view and choosing Next to see the fields that are available.

Which fields do you want on your report?

You can choose the fields you want on your report, for example—file name, type and coding coverage.

Select a field from the Available fields list and click the right arrow > to add it to the report. The fields you can choose depend on the type of View you selected in the previous step of the Wizard.

The order of the Selected fields from top to bottom determines the order in the report from left to right. To change the order—select a field and then click the up arrow or the down arrow .

You can choose Summary Options for each field in your report. Use this option when you want to display calculations—for example, count, sum, average—rather than every record for that field.

Do you want to filter your report?

You can filter the data that is displayed in the report. For example, you can choose to build a report based on files created by specific users.

To create the filter:

1. Click the Add button.
2. Click in the first empty box and select the field you want to filter on.
3. Click in the next box and select the type of filter—do you want to filter anything that 'equals' the specified text or is 'greater than' a specified value?
4. Click the Select box to choose a parameter or leave the default if you want to prompt the user for a parameter when the report is run.

What name and description do you want for your report?

Enter a name and description for your report. The report will be stored in the Reports folder.

You can also choose the default output file type for the report (*.txt, *.xls, *.xlsx, *.xml). What you select here will be the default whenever you run the report. However, you can always change the output format when you run the report.

Create a formatted report using the Report Designer

1. On the Share tab, click New Formatted Report and then click New Formatted Report via Designer.
2. In the Name box, enter a name for the report. You can optionally enter a description and title for your report.
3. You can choose to build your report
   • From a view and then select a view from the list.
   • From a text report—click Select, then select a text report and click OK.
4. (Optional) In the Style list, select a style—you will not be able to choose a different style after the report is created.
5. Click OK. A workspace opens in Detail View. The structure of the report is displayed on the left and the Field List is displayed on the right.