Building reports

You need the Create, edit and share reports permission to build reports. By default the Manager role has it.

A powerful permission

Report managers can build reports from any of your clinic’s data (patients, appointments, money, stock and more), whatever their other permissions, and see every report. Give this permission only to people who should see all of that.

Start a report

1. In Reports, select New report.
2. Choose How to start:
   • Templates: a ready-made report for a common question. Pick one, then change anything you like before saving.
   • From scratch: pick a data source, which decides what each row is about. For example, with Appointments, each row is one appointment. Related information (the patient, the clinician, billing and more) is then available as columns.

Use the search box to find a template or data source.

The page then shows the settings on one side and a Preview with live results on the other. The preview updates as you work. Select Refresh to run it again.

Note

To change the data source later, select Change next to it. Columns, filters, sorting and the chart belong to a data source, so they’re cleared.

Details

• Report name (required). You can enter it in each of your clinic’s languages.
• Description: what the report answers. It’s shown on the report list.

Columns

Columns are the information shown in the report. Select Add column, search for a field, and pick it. Fields marked Period are calculated over the activity period. Drag a column to reorder it, or select Remove column to remove it.

Open a column’s Options to:

• Calculation: summarize this column with Sum, Average, Minimum, Maximum, Count or Count unique. Or choose Show each value - don’t calculate.
• Group dates by: for a date column, combine dates into a Day, Week, Month, Quarter, Year, Hour of day or Day of week. For example, choose Month to get one row per month. Choose Exact date (don’t group) to keep each date.
• Totals row: add a figure for this column (Total, Average, Minimum, Maximum or Count) in the totals row at the bottom. Totals always cover every matching record.

How rows are built

The top of the Columns section explains how the report will look:

Your columns	The report shows
No column has a calculation	One row per record. For example, one row per appointment.
Some columns have a calculation	One row per value of the columns without a calculation. For example, “Clinician” plus “Count of appointments” gives one row per clinician, with their count.
Every column has a calculation	A single summary row for all matching records.

Filters

Filters decide which records are included. With no filters, every record is included.

1. Select Add filter and pick a field.
2. Choose how to compare. The choices depend on the field, for example is, is any of, contains, at least, between, in period, in the last … days or is empty.
3. Enter the value.

Turn on Ask when running to let viewers change this filter’s value each time they run the report. Otherwise the filter is fixed, and every fixed filter needs a value.

Activity period

The Activity period limits counts and totals that are calculated over time, such as appointments completed or amount collected. Viewers can change it when they run the report.

Sorting

Select Add sort, pick a column and choose Ascending or Descending. Add more sorts to break ties. Without one, rows use the Default order.

Chart

Choose a Chart type: Bars, Horizontal bars, Stacked bars, Line, Area or Pie. Or No chart. Then choose which column gives the Labels and which give the Values.

Charts use summarized rows: at least one numeric column must have a calculation, and one column must be kept to label the chart.

Sharing

Choose who can open and run the report:

• Roles: everyone with these roles.
• People: individual staff members.

Everyone you share with can run the report and see all of its results, whatever their other permissions. A report that isn’t shared is only visible to report managers.

Save

Select Create report (or Save changes when editing). You see Report created or Report saved.

If something is missing, Meddesk tells you, for example Give the report a name. or Add at least one column and give every fixed filter a value.

Templates you can start from

Template	Answers
New patients by month	How many patients registered each month, with a trend line.
Patients by age and gender	Your patient population broken down by age group and gender.
Patients due for a recall	Patients not seen for a while who have no upcoming appointment.
Staff workload	Appointments completed, patients seen, time spent and money collected per staff member.
Appointments by status	Completed, cancelled and missed appointments month by month.
No-shows by clinician	Which clinicians’ patients miss their appointments most.
Busiest hours	Appointments per hour of the day, to plan staffing.
Daily collections	Money received each day by payment method.
Cash flow by month	Money in, money out and net cash flow for each month.
Account balances	Current balance of every active cash and bank account.

Modules add their own templates and data sources when they’re turned on, for example Receivables aging (Invoice), Low stock (Inventory) or Lab turnaround (Laboratory). Each module’s page lists them.

Data sources

Data source	Each row is
Patients	One patient, with demographics, visit history and totals from other modules.
Staff & workload	One staff member, with appointments, patients seen, collections and other workload for any period.
Appointments	One appointment, with its patient, clinician, type, status and billing.
Transactions	One payment, refund, expense payment or transfer recorded in your accounts.
Accounts	One cash or bank account, with its balance and money in and out for any period.