Overview
Use the Reporting Dictionary tool to learn more about the data fields you can include in your reports. This helps you ensure that you include the most valuable information for your business when running your reports.
Who uses this feature
Administrators and office employees
Applies to all business types
Feature configuration
Creating custom reports is available only to contractors on the Works package or Legacy/Non-Packaged contractors. Contractors on the Starter and Essentials packages have access to built-in reports.
Reporting permissions are required to use this feature. Please contact the account administrator on your team.
Things to know
Many data fields can also be used as key performance indicators (KPIs) for your business. Examples of data fields include Customer Name, Location Address, or Job #. Examples of KPIs include Completed Revenue from Jobs Booked, Gross Margin per Paid Hour, or Average Sale from Opportunities on TGL. For consistency, we refer to both data fields and KPIs as data fields when using the Reporting Dictionary.
Benefits of using this feature
Increase discoverability of data fields. Previously, the only information available about a data field was its tooltip, which you could view by hovering your cursor over the data field. Now, you can access the Reporting Dictionary to view detailed information about the data field, such as its calculation, an example, and any drilldown columns, if available.
Easier to find a metric in Reporting, even if you don’t know exactly what you need. The smart search available in the Dictionary analyzes the searched term by examining various characteristics of the data fields and comparing them to the searched term.
Access the Reporting Dictionary
There are two ways to access the Reporting Dictionary:
Create a report
Go to Reports in the main navigation menu.
Click Create Report.
On the Create Report screen that opens, click Open in the Search Data Fields banner.
The Search Data Fields screen opens, where you can search for a data field. For more, see Search for a data field.
Use the Templates Library
Go to Reports in the main navigation menu.
From the side menu, click Templates Dictionary.
The Reporting Templates Dictionary screen opens, where you can see details about the report template, examples of reports you can build from it, and all data fields available in it.
View data field details
Each data field in the Reporting Dictionary includes the following details:
Name: The Name of the data field. This is shown in the column header in a report.
About Data Field: This is the data field’s tooltip, which can be viewed by hovering your cursor over the data field name.
Details: Detailed information about the data field. Includes the following:
Description: A detailed description of the data field. This typically includes what the report filters correspond to, or how the report filters may change the metrics from the data field.
Calculation: If the data field is a calculation of various metrics, the calculation is defined. If there is no calculation, N/A displays.
Example: A practical example of how the data field is applied and what will show in the data field column of the report. If there is no example, N/A displays.
Drilldown: If the data field includes drilldown information, a list of the drilldown columns displays. Not all data fields include drilldown information.
Click Create Report to create a new custom report that includes the data field.
Search for a data field
If you’re unsure which data fields you want to add to a report, you can use the Search Data Fields tool to quickly find them. The search algorithm compares the searched term with all existing data fields. When a result is found, it provides a confidence level for the top 100 results based on the following criteria:
Data field name
Template the data field belongs to
Alternative industry names, or other terms in the industry that are used to mean the same metric or attribute
Note: Not all data fields include alternative industry names.
Data field tooltip
Detailed description of the data field
Based on the combination of the criteria, you’ll see certain confidence percentages on the returned results, ordered from highest to lowest. The higher the confidence percentage, the more we’re confident that this is the data field you need or have been searching for.
To learn more about the data field, click on the data field, and then click Learn More in dictionary.
Detailed information about the data field opens in a new tab.
Create a custom report from search
When you search for and find a data field that matches the metrics you want in a report, you can add that data field to a report template and create a custom report.
From the Search Data Fields screen, click on the data field you want to add to a report, and then click Create Report.
The Create Report screen opens to the Report Template with the data field selected.
Note: Data fields added to the report from search have a Search result label.
Click Next to continue creating your custom report.