Understanding Reports

What’s the use of having all of this data if you can’t use it?  Reports help you make the most of the information you’ve collected.  From running rolls and directories to running attendance reports- we’ll walk through the use of Reports and the best practices for your ministry.


First, let’s navigate to the Reports page.  Hover and click Membership, then Reports.


On the left, in the navigation pane, you will find folders of Membership Reports.  Each type of report can be filtered in numerous ways.  Let’s take a look at how we can do that.


For this example, we will run a Birthday report.  In the navigation pane, find People>Birthdays and click it.  

The Report Options will open to the right.

 

 

* The Birthday report will default exclude those that are deceased and those that are archived.

Currently, it’s set to run a report for anyone with a birthday next month.  

We can change the date range by simply clicking on the Next Month drop-down menu.

By clicking on the + to the right of Next Month, we can add additional criteria that either exclude or include other individuals.  

For this example, let’s run a report for This Month and Next Month’s Birthdays.  

The Add Filter button will allow you to narrow your search even further.  Let’s search specifically for children under 12 having birthdays this month or next.

 

The Bottom of the Report Options shows the display options (how the report will look and what it will include).

For this example, we’re planning to write and mail birthday cards.  We only need the name, address, and birthday/age.  For convenience, we’d like them sorted by date so that we can write them in order.  Our report display options will look like this:

We’re ready to run the report by clicking on the Run Report button.

You can also choose to Run Report In New Tab if you want to run another slightly different report or think you might want to tweak the options after seeing them.  This will keep you from losing the filter you’re working with.


You can also find more information about Saving and Loading Reports here.