Using Report Center

Objectives
After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

  • Utilize navigation tools in the Report Center
  • Customize the time zone for date field in the reports

Use Report Center

To access Report Center, select Reporting on the main navigation menu. If Report Center has not been enabled and permissioned to the user, they cannot access Report Center.

Report types

Reports can be built directly from Report Center, providing several different Report formats that allow you to build reports that fit your needs. Each format provides a unique set of capabilities depending on what type of report you want to build.

SuccessFactors reclassified the terminology for the reporting solutions that existed prior to the release of Report Center.

Report Center navigation

Search for a Report

You can search for a report by Report or Author Name. The search field uses an autocomplete feature.

Using Favorite Reports

You can use Report Center to add or remove favorite reports that are available on the home page.

To use favorite reports:

  • Select or clear the star icon that precedes the report name to add it or remove it from the list of favorite reports. For example, Select the star before Goal Status in Report Center.
  • On the latest home page, choose the new Favorite Reports quick action to view your list of favorite reports, arranged by the report types. For example, Goal Status is listed under Dashboards. The quick action allows you to search and remove reports from your favorites list.

Custom labels

Custom labels can be added to reports in Report Center.

Allowing custom labels provides a method to organize reports within Report Center. This helps users find the reports they are looking for and to group common reports.

Label grouping / nesting and Report Center views

When using Report Center, you can view your reports with two views: Reports and Labels.

The Reports view allows you to view reports in a list format. The Labels view allows you to view labels in a list format where the reports are grouped under labels. The reports that are not associated with any labels are grouped under Unlabeled.

You can select the view preference in Report Center. In Report view, the labels appear underneath the corresponding report titles in the flat report list. Selecting a label will filter for that label to display reports that have that label.

Labels view shows public and private labels that can be expanded or collapsed. When you enable Labels view, Report Center will display public labels and the reporting user’s private labels. Labels that do not have any reports that the user has access to will not display. Reports without any labels will appear in 'Unlabeled Reports'.

Note

A reporting administrator can enable the setting 'Show labels in a hierarchical structure' in Manage Report Center. When enabled, the nested labels appear in a hierarchical order, even when labels in the hierarchy aren’t associated with reports. You expand every label in the Labels view to see the associated reports and/or the next label in the hierarchy.

Sorting and filtering Reports

Report Center users can filter the list of reports by Author, Modification Date, labels, or type. This filter setting will remain "sticky" across login/logout sessions until it is changed or cleared. The filter icon will indicate how many filter options are currently applied. The results can be sorted by Report Name, Author, Modification Date, or Type.

Creating new Reports

You can use Report Center to create reports of type: Canvas, Table, Story, Tiles, and Dashboard.

To create new reports:

1. Go to Report Center > New.

2. Select an appropriate template (Canvas, Table, Tile, Dashboard, or Story).

3. Choose Select.

Note
Details on how to create the different report types may be found in HR882 SAP SuccessFactors People Analytics: Reporting and Administration. Please refer to the appropriate section.

Report Center allows report management to be done from one single location, including finding, managing, and creating reports.

The Report Center action menu allows a user to do the following:

  • Run a report

  • Edit a report

  • Share a report with other users

  • Rename a report

  • Delete an individual report

  • Export a report

  • Duplicate a report

  • Schedule a report

  • Assign labels to a report

  • Change Author

Note
Permissions and report types may prevent all action options from being available on a report.

You can run and edit the reports from with Report Center. Tiles cannot be run from Report Center, they should instead be viewed where they are deployed: Insight Panel, homepage, or Dashboard.

Manage multiple Reports

You can select multiple reports at once in Report Center using the check boxes to the left of the report name. Up to 50 report may be selected at a time.

Once selected, you can perform management tasks on the selected report. Currently you can do the following:

  • Export the selected report definitions to a single zip file. This does not include data. This may be useful when transferring reports across instances.
  • Delete the selected reports.
  • Assign labels to the selected reports.

Share Reports

Users can share reports with Users, RBP Roles, Group, and Dynamic Groups from the Report Center.

The Share action will be active if you have access to edit the table or canvas report. Story reports require the report be shared with the user full access or be the owner of the report. To share with users, find and select individual users to share your report with.

Share Report with groups

To share with groups, find and select RBP Groups or Dynamic Groups to share your report with.

You need Share Reports to Groups & Roles permission to share your report with groups.

Share Report with Roles

To share with roles, find and select RBP Roles to share your report with.

You need Share Reports to Groups and Roles permission to share your report with groups.

Schedule Reports

Schedule data intensive reports offline to download later or to be sent to SFTP (Secured File Transfer Protocol) sites. The user must have permission to schedule reports. Only users with Schedule Reports to FTP Destination permission can schedule reports to be sent to FTP.

To schedule a report:

  1. Go to New Schedule from Action menu.

  2. Fill the required details on Job Definition tab.

    (a) Enter the Job Name.

    (b) Select the Report Format.

    (c) Enter the e-mail addresses you want to send notifications. These e-mail addresses do not receive the resulting scheduled report. You can choose to send notifications on Job Start or Job Completion.

  3. On the Filter tab, set the filters for the report.

  4. On the Destination tab, select either Offline to download the report later from the View Schedules section or schedule a report to be sent to File Transfer Protocol (FTP).

Set-up the Destination SFTP

After selecting Secured File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) as the destination, do the following.

  1. Enter the Host Address, SFTP Login, and SFTP password.

  2. Enter the File Path where the import or export file is located.

  3. Enter the File Name with extension, for example, New_Report.xlsx, and select the Date Format for table reports.

Note
For canvas reports, enter the Folder Name. Date Format is not available.

Set-up a Job Occurrence

On Job Occurrence tab, select how often the report should run and the first scheduled occurrence of the report. The job runs at the specified time for each occurrence.

View Schedules and Jobs

On View Schedules page, you can see the schedules you have set up and the jobs that are scheduled to run.

You can perform the following actions from Action menu:

  • Run the schedule

  • Delete the schedule

  • Cancel the job to make it inactive

  • View jobs for an individual schedule

  • Edit the schedule

View Schedules has several views available to the user:

  • My Schedules:Lists all the schedules that you set-up.

  • My Jobs: Lists all the jobs based on the job occurrence set by you when creating a schedule. From Action menu, you can see the Job Details or download the report.

  • All Schedules: Lists all schedules in your instance (Requires and administrative permission).

Updating the Date Fields in the Report – Localized or Not Localized

Date fields in reports can often cause issues. In some cases, there may be a difference of one day between the actual date in the UI and the date in the report.

The difference can appear when the timestamp option is selected in the Configuration tab when building the report and when the "localized" checkbox is enabled. When this is the case, logged-in users running the report will see the date based on their time zone as opposed to the time zone of the data center where the report is actually run. Sometimes, this should not be the case.

The issue can be solved by unchecking the Localized checkbox besides the desired date fields or by selecting date instead of timestamp.

Some date fields, like theLast Modified Date, often use the time stamp option with the Localized checkbox enabled. For other date fields like Hire Date or Date of Birth, timestamps are generally not used.

Create a table report in the Report Center

Business example

Your customer wants to see a demonstration of Report Center. They want you to show them how to create a report table based on the Employee Profile reporting domain. They also want to see how to share this report with all the managers and run it offline.

Steps

  1. Create a table report with the Employee Profile reporting domain. The report will contain the fields: Username, First Name, Last Name, E-mail, Title .

    1. From the main navigation menu go to Reporting.

    2. Click New and select Table.

    3. Create a Single domain report based on Employee Profile.

    4. In the General Info tab, define the report name: Employee List.

    5. Go to the People tab and choose Refine Criteria. Select Other Filters and make sure that inactive users will not be included in the results of the report.

    6. Go to the Columns and click on Select Columnsand click Ok.

    7. Select Username, First Name, Last Name, E-mail, and Title, and Click Done.

    8. Skip the Configuration and Filters tab. Choose the Save icon and then choose Preview. Select Close.

    9. Choose Report Center link to return to the Report Center main page.

  2. Share your report with all managers.

    1. In Report Center, verify that the newly created report Employee Listappears in the list. If it does not appear in the list, it may not have saved correctly. In that case, repeat the previous step.

    2. Choose action icon, then choose Share.

    3. Choose the three dots under Action, then choose Share.

    4. Select Managers Only and choose the Save icon.

    5. From the name menu, choose Proxy Now.

    6. Proxy as Manny Manager who is a manager in the organization.

      Note
      If you cannot proxy as Manny Manager at this stage, go back to the Exercise "Assign a Proxy". Use the Proxy Management tool to add the HR Coordinator as a proxy to act on behalf of Manny Manager. Then, try again.
    7. From the main navigation menu, go to Reporting, verify that the report Gender Diversity is available for Manny to run but not to edit or share.

    8. Continuing to act as Manny, run the Employee List Report with the Play icon and select Run Online. Choose Generate Report.

    9. Wait a few seconds and verify that Manny can see results in this report.

  3. Run the report offline and access it via the scheduler.

    1. Go back to acting as the administrator by selecting the name menu and choose Become Self.

    2. From the main navigation menu go to Reporting.

    3. For the Employee List report choose Play Action icon and select Run Online.

    4. Select the radio button Run Offline, do not change the name and select Excel for the format.

    5. Choose Generate Report.

    6. A message indicates that the report has been scheduled with a quick link to go to the schedule reports.

    7. Choose OK.

    8. Back to the main Report Center page, click on View Schedules and then My Jobs.

    9. Choose action icon for the Employee List report and select Download.

    10. Save the file on your computer and verify that it contains users.

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