There are two ways you can report on data in Web Help Desk. The first is a standard report, which is useful for statistics and aggregated data views. The second is using Advanced search. Advanced search provides a detailed list of data based on defined conditions. Let's review them side-by-side.
Reports are great for statistics and aggregated data. In contrast, advanced search is handy if you need a lot of details on individual items.
Reports works on tickets, assets, and billing, while advanced search gives you details for tickets, assets and clients. Reports can also provide you with statistics on relations between data, for example, the number of tickets per asset. However, Advanced Search will only provide detailed lists of one object type. You can export both to a PDF. Using advanced search, you can also export to a TSV so you can use it for further analysis. Reports can be scheduled and emailed to both techs and clients. Finally, Advanced Search can be saved as a query, shared with other technicians, and used as a source for dashboard and chart visualizations.
In this video, we'll create a new Web Help Desk report and learn how to use the advanced search features included with the reporting feature. Let's say your manager wants you to generate a report that displays all closed tickets for last month.
To begin, I'll click 'Reports' in the toolbar and then click 'New.'
In the Report Name field, I'll name this report "Closed tickets for last month" so we can find this report later.
In the Report Group drop-down, I'll select 'IT' to categorize this report.
Next, I'll click the 'Report Type' drop-down menu and select 'Ticket Report' because we want to generate a report based on ticket data. This will add new tabs with more options.
Next, I'll click the 'Reports Details' tab.
In this screen, we'll leave Bar chart selected as the chart type because we want this report to be nice and visual. Down below, you'll notice that the Show Table box is selected, which will display the data in tabular format.
You can break down your data in several ways. So, for this report, I'll select 'Assigned Tech' for the Bar Category. This will give us some insight about our tech's performance.
We'll also need to change the Time Range to 'Relative' from one month ago and the Data Attribute for Time Range to 'Date Closed.' Looks good.
Since we want to generate a report for closed tickets, we'll need a report filter to define that.
So, I'll click the 'Report Filters' tab to create a filter.
I'll click 'New' to create a new filter. Here, I'll select 'Status' for the Filter Attribute, leave the Filter Type set to 'Inclusive', and select a 'Closed' value.
Now, I'll click 'Save.'
Let's run the report to see the result.
Click 'Run report' to generate the report. Looks great.
We have our chart per Assigned Tech and also a tabular view with links to the individual tickets.
We can now return a list of reports. You can export the report to a PDF and send it to your manager.
Now, let's say your manager asks you for a detailed list of all Web Help Desk tickets that were closed last month. Here, you have two options. You can run the report we just created and open the link from the table view in the report. Simply run the report and click on the total number of tickets. This will give you a list of all tickets, which you can export and modify as needed.
Another option is to build your list using Advanced Search. To begin, click 'Tickets' in the toolbar and then click 'Search Tickets.'
In the search screen, click the 'Advanced Search' tab. Here, you can define two types of condition groups: ALL or ANY. We'll use 'ALL' conditions for this example because we want all conditions to be true to generate our report.
First, let's select a Status condition that is 'Closed.'
Next, we'll create a second condition by clicking '+' on the right side. For this condition, we'll select 'Date Closed within the last 30 business days.'
Next, we'll click 'Search' and verify that the results will be the same in the report. The results appear below the search screen.
From here, you can click the gear icon and create a report in PDF or TSV format. We can save this search as a query for your techs in the Advanced Search screen by giving the query a name, selecting the 'Shared' check box, and clicking 'Save.' Let's call the query 'Closed Last Month' and save it. When you're done, the query will be available to all Techs in the Query drop-down below in the list view.
You can also subscribe to calendar view for the query as well. After you create your query, you can create a Widget in the Dashboard that references the query.
Let's click 'Dashboard' in the toolbar and have a look. In the Dashboard, click 'Add Widget.' You'll notice that a new widget configuration box appears.
Next, click the 'Category' drop-down menu, select 'Assigned Tech', and click 'Save.' Now you can see almost real-time data on your closed tickets.
We've seen two ways you can build reports using Web Help Desk.
You can generate statistics on various objects using Reports and you can get detailed lists using the Advanced Search feature.