Managing Reports with Report Center

Objective

After completing this lesson, you will be able to manage Reports

Report Center for the Report Designer

The Report Center is the one-stop shop for report designers to run and edit all their reports. The Report Center interface is designed on the SAP Fiori interface principles. Additional features are being added to Report Center with the SAP SuccessFactors release schedule, so keep an eye out for new functionality.

The Dashboard and Tiles framework will be deleted (deprecated) on November 21, 2025.

Tile & Dashboard reports are not available for new customers provisioned after the 2H 2023 release.

Canvas reports for transactional reporting (Detailed and Advanced reporting) and Table reporting were also initially announced for deletion on the same date but have since been postponed.

Currently, there is no set date for deletion, but the recommendation is to use Story reporting whenever possible.

Report Center Access

Reporting option from the Home menu is highlighted.

To access Report Center, select Reporting on the main navigation menu. If Report Center hasn't been permissioned to the user, they can't access Report Center.

Report Center Navigation

Report Center Navigation

Note

The report views are only visible when you're a Report Administrator.

Note

The Report Center window can be viewed in full screen mode (which removes headers and footers from the page) and responds dynamically to browser size.

Report Center Search, Filters, and Views

Report Center Search

Report Center Search field highlighted.

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

Report Center Filter

Report Center Filter field highlighted.

Report Center users can filter the list of reports by Author, Modification Date, Labels, or Type. This filter setting remains the same value across login or logout sessions until it's changed or cleared. The filter icon indicates how many filter options are currently applied. You can sort results by Report Name, Author, Modification Date, or Type.

My Reports View

My Reports tab highlighted.

If you're a Report Administrator, you have a view in Report Center referred to as. Administrators often have access to many reports, and this view limits the reports displayed so they can focus on essential reports. Administrators can use search and filter features on All Reports when locating additional reports.

Report Administrator views contain:

  • My Reports: All your authored reports and reports shared with you.
  • All Reports: All reports that you have access to.

These views appear in the Report Center navigation when the user is an administrator of any report type.

Report Center Action Menu

Report Center Action menu highlighted.

In the Report Center interface, you can manage reports via the Action menu. You can perform the following actions:

  • Run
  • Edit
  • Share
  • Rename
  • Delete
  • Export
  • Duplicate
  • Schedule
  • Label as
  • Change Author (owner)
  • Copy Link

Note

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

Favorite Reports

Set Favorite Reports option highlighted.

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 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.

New Reports

Select a new report type

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

To create new reports:

1. Go to Report CenterNew .

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

3. Choose Select.

Label Reports with Report Center

Collection of Label Images

Public and Private Labels

Labels can now be classified as public or private.

Public Labels:

  • Are visible to:
  • Report Administrators.
  • Report Consumers when they have access (shared with them, author of the report) to a report assigned the public label.
  • Can be created only by Report Administrators.
  • Can be assigned to reports only by Report Administrators.

Private labels:

  • Are only visible to the user that created the private label.
  • Can be created by any reporting user.
  • Can be assigned to reports that the user can access.

All reporting users can manage their own private labels. Only Reporting Administrators can manage public labels. See the following example of the Manage Labels screen for two separate administrators and a reporting user.

Note

In the images in the examples, the text (Public) and (Private) has been added to the label name for clarity of the example. Typically, you can differentiate public and private by color, public labels have a color assigned while private labels have a grey label color.

Administrator A sets up public and private labels.

Administrator B can manage all public labels, but cannot see or manage Administrator A's private labels.

Report creators and consumers cannot manage public labels.

Label Reports

You can create labels though either the drop-down next to the labels tab, or though the action area of a report. Report administrators can create public and private labels. Other reporting users can only create private labels.

By default, when creating a new label, the label is set to private.

When working with label name, consider the following:

  • Labels are NOT case-sensitive. Retail and retail are considered as one label.
  • You CAN create ONE public and private label with the same name.
  • Label names of the same type (public, private) must be unique. For example, you cannot create a private label named FAVORITES and another private label named favorites.
  • Private labels with the same name can be created by different users. For example, Sally can create a private label named Favorites and Sam can create a private label named Favorites.

Report Administrators can create public or private labels.

Other reporting users can create private labels only.

To create a Label, complete the following steps:

  1. Open the Manage Labels, undertake one of the following actions:Choose Create from the dropdown next to the Labels tab.In the Label As action, choose Create New.
  2. Enter the Label Name.
  3. To set the label type as public, select Public.
  4. To nest the label inside another, select Nested label in, and select its parent label from the dropdown list.
  5. Select a color for the public label.
  6. Choose Create.
  7. Choose Done.

Assign a Label

  1. In Report Center, undertake one of the following actions:Select the Label As button.Select the action menu, then point to Label As.
  2. Select one or more labels.
  3. Choose Apply.

Manage Labels in Report Center

You can also manage labels, such as deleting labels, editing the label color, marking as public or private, and grouping/nesting labels.

To manage labels in the Report Center, complete the following steps:

  1. Choose Manage from the dropdown next to the Labels tab.
  2. From Manage Labels you can:
    • Search for existing labels.
    • Create a new label by choosing Create New.
    • Delete a label with the delete button.
    • Edit an existing label with the pencil (edit) button.

    Note

    With the Edit function, you can do the following:
    • Rename an existing label
    • Mark public / private
    • Change the color
    • Nest it in another label
  3. When this is complete, choose Done.

Label Grouping/Nesting and Report Center Views

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

  • The Reports tab allows you to view reports in a list format.
  • The Labels tab 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.

Reports display labels under the report name.

You can select the view in Report Center. In Report view, the labels appear underneath the corresponding report titles in the flat report list. Clicking on a label will filter for that label.

Label view shows public and private labels that can be expanded and collapsed.

When you enable Labels view, Report Center will display public labels and the reporting user's private labels. Labels that don’t have any reports that the user has access to do not appear. Reports without labels 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.

Run and Edit Reports

You can run and edit report types from with Report Center.

Each command will launch the appropriate browser or editor for the report type. For more detail on specifics of running and editing a certain report type, please access the appropriate Unit.

Note

Tiles cannot be run from Report Center, they should instead be viewed where they are deployed.

Delete Reports

The action menu allows you to delete existing reports. Select the action menu for the report you wish to delete and choose Delete.

Export Report Definitions

You can export a report definition for an instance to use it in Report Center of another instance. Import the exported report definition to save time in creating a report from scratch.

You can export report definition from Report Center for:

  • Table reports, exported in .SFR format
  • Canvas reports, exported in .XML format
  • Tile and Dashboard, exported in .ZIP format
  • Story, exported in .PACKAGE format.

Exported report definitions define how the report is constructed (objects, tables and fields in queries, etc). They do not contain any data. Due to different configurations, an exported report definition will not necessarily work on a separate instance.

Be aware of some limitations of exporting reports:

  • You can’t export a Story report definition with any other report type. However, you can export multiple stories simultaneously. The multiple stories are exported as a single .package file.
  • You can't export the definition of Tile-Based Dashboards (custom dashboards created in Report Center).

Manage Multiple Report

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

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

  • Export the selected report definitions to a single zip file.
  • Delete the selected reports.
  • Assign labels to the selected reports.

Modify Report Author

If you have the appropriate permissions, you can change the Report Author of existing reports. The full ramifications of changing the Author (sometimes referred to the owner) of thereport are covered in the appropriate report type section in the course. In general, report authors have full permissions to that report. Typically, the report author is assigned the management of the report and may need to transition that responsibility to someone else. This transition may occur when the report creator 'hands off' the report management or when the current report owner leaves the company.

Change Author is available in the action list if the current logged-in user is the current author. Change Author is also available for the report type if the logged-in user has administrative permission:

Report Sharing

Users can share reports with Users, RBP Roles, Group and Dynamic Groups from the Report Center if they have the appropriate permission for the report type.

Sharing Reports

To share a table or canvas report, you need to have edit access to the report.

To share Story reports, you must be the owner of the report, or the report must be shared with you with the full access permission.

To share tile-based dashboards, you must be a dashboard and tile administrator.

To share with users, find and select individual users to share your report.

Note

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

Sharable Link

Creating a Shareable Link for Story Reports

You can create a shareable link for any story that you see on your Report Center page. When you share the link with others, only the authorized users can access the story using that link.

When you use the action copy link, a direct link to the Story report is copied to your system clipboard, which you can share with others.

Note

The Copy Link option on the Action menu is supported only for Story reports.

Report Scheduling

You’re able to schedule reports for offline execution so that you can download the reports later or generate the reports at a regular cadence. Report scheduling is especially recommended for data intensive reports that can take a long time to generate. With scheduling, you can send reports to SFTP (Secured File Transfer Protocol) sites to offload processing for reports with large data volumes.

The user must have permission to schedule reports.

Note

Only users with Schedule Reports to FTP Destination permission can schedule reports to be sent to FTP.

To schedule a report, complete the following steps:

  1. Go to New Schedule from Action menu.
  2. Fill the required details on Job Definition tab.Enter the Job Name.Select the Report Format.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. For Canvas and Story reports, to go to Destination to set the report output.
  4. On Destination tab, select either Offline to download the report later from the View Schedules section or schedule a report to be sent to Secured File Transfer Protocol (SFTP).

    Note

    For Story reports, only the CSV file format is available and can only have a destination method of Offline.

    Note

    For Canvas reports, the MS Excel and CSV file formats are available only when the report has ONLY List Report type of table components. If the report has table components based on views (pivots), the CSV file format is NOT supported. If a Canvas report has images or charts, the MS Excel and CSV file formats are not available.

Complete the following steps:

  1. Enter the Host Address, SFTP Login, and SFTP password.
  2. Enter the File Path where the export file will be located.
  3. Enter the File Name with extension, for example, New_Report.xlsx
  4. Select the date format for table reports.

Note

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

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.

Schedule Management

Manage your report schedules to maintain the list of recurring reports in Report Center. You can navigate to View Schedules to manage existing schedules.

On View Schedules page, see the schedules you have set up and the jobs that are running.

When you manage schedules in the report center, you’re not necessarily managing your reports. You might have scheduled someone else's report, for example, if you have permissions to schedule. For that reason, the View Schedules page has three tabs.

The View Schedules page has three tabs:

  • My Schedules: Lists all the schedules set up by you.
  • My Jobs: Lists all the job 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. Only available if you have the permission "View all Schedules".

The following columns appear in the scheduling tabs:

  • Title - The name of the schedule that is created.
  • Author - The name of the admin who created the schedule.
  • Last Modified - The latest date when the schedule was edited. Note: The column isn't available in My Jobs tab.
  • Occurrence - The type of occurrence that has been selected while creating a schedule. You can select the occurrence only once, daily, weekly, or monthly.
  • Destination - Shows whether the report scheduled is for offline or SFTP.
  • Start Date - Shows the date and time when the job was scheduled.

    Note

    The column is only available in My Jobs tab.
  • Cells - Displays the total number of cells that the report returns. The total number of cells returned in your report is defined as the product of number of rows and number of columns in your report. For example, if you have N number of rows and M number of columns in your report, the total number of cells returned = N * M. Note: Data in this column populates only after an instance of the job runs (at least, once).
  • Impact of Guardrail - Indicates the impact that guardrail has on your reports. Guardrail check is enabled for online reports, and this column is populated based on the check result. This column is blank when the number of cells in the report remains within the permissible limit for online generation. The value shown in this column is:
    • Offline - Indicates that the number of cells in the report exceeds the limit for normal online execution. You can schedule reports that exceeds the limit.
    • Blocked - Indicates that the number of cells in the multi domain Table report without a BIRT template exceeds the limit for execution. Reduce the number of cells by applying filter or editing the report definition.
  • Status - Shows the status of the scheduled job, whether it has completed, failed, or recovered. To cancel a job that is in the In Progress status or running for more than 24 hours, click the ellipses icon under the Action column and then select Cancel. Note: The column is only available in My Jobs tab.
  • Action - Click the ellipses icon to perform various operations like running, deleting, canceling, viewing, or editing the scheduled job.

Scheduling Actions

You can perform the following actions from Action menu.

  • Run the schedule.
  • Delete the schedule.
  • Cancel the jobs you no longer want to run.
  • View jobs for an individual schedule
  • Edit the schedule.

You can cancel scheduled jobs that aren't completed and are stuck in the same status for a long time. This job cancellation improves the performance of the report scheduler in Report Center.

You can cancel a job if the status of the scheduled job for Canvas report is in the Waiting or Started status and for Table report it is in the In Progress status

Hint

Refresh the My Jobs page to check the status of a job before canceling it.

Queue of Reports Scheduled to Run Offline

Scheduled reports sometimes take longer time to start running because they go into a queue.

The report scheduler framework runs 10 jobs at a time from each job server. When the jobs exceed this number, the scheduler runs from the emergency queue where there are six job nodes to pick the jobs.

 

If some jobs are still running, and it is taking longer to finish the job execution, the scheduler delays to pick up the next job. Only when all jobs have finished executing will the scheduler take up the new jobs. This causes a scheduled report to start running offline late.

Report Downloads from My Jobs

You access and download the output files of scheduled reports from the My Jobs page in Report Center.

The output files of the scheduled Story, Table, and Canvas reports,are available for download on the My Jobs page. In addition, Calibration, Succession, and Compensation and Variable Pay use some legacy reports that are triggered from the respective products. The generated reports are available for download on the My Jobs page.

All reports are available for download for 14 days from job completion. To download a report after 14 days, you must reschedule the report generation through a new job.

Note

You cannot configure a different retention period for any type of report.

To download Reports in My Jobs, complete the following steps:

  1. Go to the Report CenterView SchedulesMy Jobs tab.
  2. Select the Action menu for the report you want to download.
  3. Select Download, and download the report.

Note

If there are multiple files in the output a report, you may have options to download individual files, merge them into a single file and download it, or download all files in a single ZIP.

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