Using the Report Designer
- Last updated
- Jun 21, 2021
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- Getting Started
- Responding Quickly in Times of Change
- Getting the Most out of PPM Pro
- What's Cookin'?
- Strategies
- PPM Pro Business Value
- Savvy PMO Guides
- Encouraging Adoption by Project Managers, Resource Managers, and Others
- Encouraging Adoption by Time Users and Timesheet Approvers
- Stepping into Centralized Project Management
- Stepping into Portfolio Management
- Stepping into Resource Management
- Stepping into Work Intake and Requests Management
- Stepping into Reports and Dashboards
- Stepping into Permissions Management
- Reducing Workload through Integrations
- FAQs
- Tips & Timesavers
- PPM Pro Entities
- General
- Organization
- Creating Divisions (was Business Unit)
- Creating Departments (was Program)
- Portfolios and Applications
- Stepping Into Portfolio Management
- About Portfolios
- About Applications
- Working with the Portfolios List page
- Printing the Portfolios List
- Creating Portfolios
- Editing and Deleting Portfolios
- Portfolio Finances
- Adding an Asset to a Portfolio
- Associating Portfolios to Projects and Hierarchy Units
- Creating and Moving Sub-Portfolios
- Reporting Against Projects Included in Multiple Portfolios
- Resources
- Assets
- Projects
- Encouraging Adoption by Project Managers, Resource Managers, and Others
- Project FAQs
- About Projects
- Working with the Project List page
- Printing the Projects List
- Using the Project Gantt Chart
- Status Comments
- Project Basics
- Working with the Project View
- Project Settings
- How to Control Project Time Entry
- Resource Planning Mode (project vs task)
- Creating Projects
- Creating a Project Template
- Creating Projects from a Template
- Editing and Deleting Projects
- Bulk Editing
- Copying a Project
- Deactivating Project Templates
- Creating Project Teams
- Adding a Portfolio to a Project
- Identifying roles on a projects
- Associating Projects
- Creating Soft Project Dependencies
- Baselines
- Financial Entries
- Tasks
- About Tasks
- Using Tasks for Iterative Work
- Working with the Task List
- Using the Spreadsheet-Style Task Editor
- Using the Task Gantt Chart
- Using the Task Timeline
- Calculating Project and Task % Complete
- Managing Tasks with PPM Pro for Mobile
- Task Basics
- Task Schedules and Estimates
- Task Costs, Revenue, and Budgets
- Dates
- Dependencies
- Constraints
- Project Logs/Issues
- Requests
- Request FAQs - End User
- About Requests
- Managing Requests (Workflow)
- Working with the Requests List
- Working with the Card View
- Creating, Editing, and Deleting Requests
- Copying Requests
- Tracking the Progress of a Request
- Associating Entities
- Creating New Entities From Requests
- Request Notes and Attachments
- Scoring Requests
- Alerts, Attachments, and Notes
- Time Management
- PPM Pro for Mobile
- Reports
- Getting Started with Reports
- Reports - Transition Topics
- Report Basics
- Speciality Reports
- Reports Cookbook
- Actual Hours by Project Category for Past 3 Months
- Allocated Cost by Role
- Allocated Hours by Project
- Allocated Hours by Project Category for Next 3 Months
- Applications by DBMS
- Capacity and Demand Project-Role-Resource
- Capacity and Demand Resource-Project-Role
- Capacity and Demand Role-Project
- Capacity vs. Project Allocations vs. Timesheet Hours
- Financial Entries by Category
- Financial Summary Full Structure
- Financial Summary Top-Level Structure Only
- Group Membership
- Intake Pipeline
- Intake Request Risk vs. Value
- Permission Profiles allowing Create Project
- Planned versus Actuals
- Portfolio Budget and Projects
- Portfolio Costs Over Time
- Portfolio Hierarchy with Project Details Considering % to Include
- Portfolio Project Status
- Portfolio Roadmap
- Projects by Category with Priority Stacks
- Projects by Priority and Status
- Project % Complete
- Project Actuals vs Estimated Hours
- Project Financials by Business Objective for a Portfolio
- Project Financial Entries
- Project Logs
- Project Overview
- Project Permissions
- Project Scores by Scoring Category
- Project Scores with Details
- Project Staffing
- Request Associated Projects with Project Status
- Request Average Days at Gates
- Request Gate Actions
- Resources - Allocated vs Capacity Hours Time Series
- Resource Average Days at Request Gate
- Resource Average Days per Request Action
- Resource Permissions
- Resource Roles and Allocations
- Resource Workbench Allocations aka Bottom Half of Home/Resources View
- Resource Workbench Utilization aka Top Half of Home/Resources View
- Role - Allocated vs Capacity Hours Time Series
- Simple Project Financials Comparison
- Simple Project Time Series
- Task Hierarchy
- Tiles
- Timesheets for this Week
- Timesheet Entries by Project-Task-Resource
- Timesheet Entries for a Resource by Category and Entry Type
- Timesheet Entries for this Week
- Timesheet Entries Totaled by Project and Resource
- Total Cost of Ownership
- Total Forecasts and Actuals
- Unit Hierarchy
- User Login Information
- Dashboards
- Filters
- Reports and Dashboards (Legacy)
- Reports (Legacy)
- About Reports (Legacy)
- Reports and Permissions/Viewing Rights
- Working with the Reports List page
- Reporting Against Projects Included in Multiple Portfolios
- Reporting On Associated Entities
- OData Setup (Legacy)
- Creating and editing reports
- Configuring report output
- Saving and running reports
- Viewing report results
- Audit History Report
- Field Descriptions Report
- Example Report Output Types
- Capacity and Demand Report Examples
- KPI Trend Reports
- Reporting on Calendar Events
- Dashboards (Legacy)
- Reports (Legacy)
- Project Staffing
- Direct Project Resource Planning
- About Project-Level Resource Planning
- Resource Planning Terms and Influences
- Creating Allocations
- Staffing Screen Quick Tour
- Expressing Demand - Allocation Units
- Configuring the Staffing Screen Display
- Allocating Resources to Projects
- Allocating Roles to Projects
- Using Advanced Search Options
- How to Evaluate Resource/Role Availability
- Contouring Allocations
- Shifting and Extending Allocations
- Deleting/Replacing/Unstaffing Allocations
- Viewing Allocation History
- Changing Resource Planning Mode
- Synchronizing Allocations After Updating the Calendar
- Bulk Deleting Allocations from a Project
- Billing Rates
- Global Project Changes - Re-plan Wizard
- Shift/Extend Examples
- Scheduling Resources to Tasks
- Shift/Extend Examples
- Managed Project Resource Staffing
- Task Resource Planning
- Direct Project Resource Planning
- Project Financials
- Setting Up Permissions for Project Financials
- Using Project Financial Entries
- Using the Financial Summary
- Setting Up Project Financial Entries
- Transitioning from Task-Level to Project-Level Expenses
- Financial Entries Overview for Administrators
- Finance Settings
- Creating Categories for Financial Entries
- Configuring Available Fields for Financial Entries
- Creating Custom Fields for Financial Entries
- Creating Field Restrictions for Financial Entries
- Designing Details - Forecast and Actuals
- Financial Entries: Out of the Box Fields
- Laying Out the Grid Columns for Financial Entries
- Configuring Searchable Fields
- API and Data Import for Financial Entries
- Setting up the Project Financial Summary
- Calendars
- Resource Capacity Planning
- Scoring Projects and Requests
- Predictive Portfolio Analysis (PPA)
- Impact Analysis
- Planview Solution Integrations (Flex)
- PPM Pro Administrator Documentation
- Overview
- System Settings
- Organization setup
- Controlling Access: Groups, Teams, and Profile-Based Permissions
- Stepping Into Permissions Management
- Permissions Overview
- User Types/Permissions
- Confidential Projects
- Granting Administrative Privileges
- Report Source Authorization
- Reporting on Permissions
- Groups
- Profile-Based Permissions
- About Profile-Based Permissions
- Out-of-the Box Permission Profiles
- Implied Permissions for Entity Owners
- Working with Permission Profiles
- Creating Permission Profiles
- Bulk Sharing Permissions
- Using the Permissions Explorer
- Issue/Project Log Permissions
- Project Permissions
- Request Permissions
- Staffing Permissions
- Task Permissions
- Entity Team Permissions
- Timesheet Administration
- Setting Up Internal Rates
- Setting Up Entities
- Self-Service Administration (SSA)
- Self-Serve Admin Workflow
- Determining Field Values: Order of Precedence
- Required vs Mandatory Fields
- Configure Searchable Fields
- Changing Filter, Report, and Dashboard Ownership
- Importing Entity Data
- Card View Setup
- Project Logs/Issues
- Portfolios and Assets
- Creating Classes for Assets and Portfolios
- Creating Categories for Assets
- Creating Categories for Portfolios
- Configuring Available Fields
- Creating Field Restrictions
- Designing the Details Page
- Portfolios: Out of the Box Fields
- Designing the Finances Panel
- Laying Out the Grid Columns
- Laying Out the Grid Fields
- Projects
- Creating Categories for Projects
- Configuring Available Fields
- Creating Field Restrictions
- Designing the Details Page
- Projects: Out of the Box Fields
- Designing the 'Additional Details' Page
- Designing the Project Settings page
- Laying Out the Grid Columns
- Health Profiles
- Mapping Health Profiles
- About PMO Locking
- Requests
- Request FAQs - Admin, Setup
- Requests Overview for Administrators
- Permissions for Requests
- Requests: Out of the Box Fields
- Creating Categories for Requests
- Configuring Available Fields for Requests
- Creating Field Restrictions for Requests
- Creating Custom Fields for Requests
- Mapping Request Fields to Fields in Associated Entities
- Designing Request Forms (Details)
- Designing Cards for Requests
- Configuring Request Notifications
- Laying Out the Grid Columns for Requests
- Gates
- Configuring Searchable Fields
- API and Data Import for Requests
- Setting Up Request Scoring
- Tasks
- Managing Lookup Lists and Status Lists
- Setting up Managed Staffing
- Creating Calculated Fields
- Working with Health Profiles
- Creating Scoring Profiles
- Integration
- Integrating with PPM Pro
- About Web Services
- Getting Started with WS API
- Best Practices and Other Basics
- Tips for finding IDs
- Field Types and IDs
- Subtype IDs
- Examples
- Login
- Get Available Fields for a Simple Entity
- Get Available Fields for a Complex Entity
- Get Specified Field Values for an Instance of an Entity
- Return a List of Specified Field Values for All Entities of a Certain Type
- Create a New Entity (API)
- Create a User for a Resource (API)
- Scheduling a Task
- Creating a Request Using the API
- Update a PPM Pro Entity
- Reference
- Default Entity Fields
- Multi-Currency Support
- Multi-Currency: Getting Started
- Multi-Currency Overview
- Currency Permissions
- Effective Dates for Currency Exchange Rates
- Creating Currency Tables
- Assigning a Currency to a Project
- Assigning a Currency to a Request
- Assigning a Currency to Roles and Resources
- Multi-Currency and Reports, Dashboards and Filters
- Product Releases
- New Features and Release Notes
- 2022 Release Notes Archive
- 2017 Release Notes Archive
- July 2017 Patch # 1
- June 19, 2017 - Patch 3
- June 30, 2017 - Patch 4
- May 19, 2017 - Patch #2
- Release Notes - March 17, 2017
- What's New - April 21, 2017
- What's New - August 2017
- What's New - December 2017
- What's New - July 2017
- What's New - June 16, 2017
- What's New - March 17, 2017
- What's New - May 19, 2017
- What's New - November 2017
- What's New - October 2017
- What's New - September 2017
- 2018 Release Notes Archive
- 2019 Release Notes Archive
- Original WSDL vs Updated WSDL
- What's New - April 2019
- What's New - August 2019
- What's New - December 2019
- What's New - February 2019
- What's New - January 2019
- What's New - July 2019
- What's New - June 2019
- What's New - March 2019
- What's New - May 2019
- What's New - November 2019
- What's New - October 2018
- What's New - October 2019
- What's New - September 2018
- What's New - September 2019
- 2020 Release Notes Archive
- 2021 Release Notes Archive
- 2023 Release Notes Archive
- 2024 Release Notes
- 2025 Release Notes
- Newsletters and Announcements
- Planview PPM Pro Newsletters
- PPM Pro Release Process
- Announcements
- Archived Announcements
- Announcement: Changes to How Users Are Added to Groups Targeted for June Release
- Announcement: Move to Parature
- Announcement: PPM Pro Inner Circles
- Announcement: Strict XSS Protection
- Cutover to DNS Subdomains
- Planview Innotas is now Planview PPM Pro!
- Planview Investment in PPM Pro Infrastructure
- TLS 1.0 End of Life
- Upcoming API Changes: Custom Date-Time Fields and Timezones
- WS API Endpoint Change Required by March 23, 2018
- Archived Articles
- API Updates for Customers Using Profile-based Permissions for Projects
- August 28 Permissions Webinar - Recording and PPT Slides
- Creating a Cross-Project Dependency
- Improved Lookup List Admin Facility
- Internal Rates - July Update
- Life After 190 Standard Reports - Or, How I Learned to Love Timesheet Alerts
- Profile-Based Permissions for Projects: Additional Features/Updates with July Release
- Profile-Based Permissions for Projects: Additional Features/Updates with June Release
- Project Permissions Migration Guide
- Quarterly Interval Display for Staffing and Resource Availability Contours
- September 25 Project Permissions Webinar
- Winter is Coming - Protect the Wall! Migrate (Your Project Permissions) to Safety!
- Archived Announcements
- Calculated Fields: Do the Right Thing!!!
- PPM Pro Domain Name Change FAQs
- PPM Pro Renewal Process
- Planview PPM Pro Customer Webinars
- 2020 QandAs
- PPM Pro August 2020 release: Q&A Transcript
- PPM Pro July 2020 release: Q&A Transcript
- PPM Pro November 2020 Release: Q&A Transcript
- PPM Pro October 2020 Release: Q&A Transcript
- PPM Pro Q&As from February 19 2020 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from January 15 2020 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from March 18 2020 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from the April 15 2020 Release
- PPM Pro Q1 2020 Roadmap Q&As
- PPM Pro Q2 2020 Roadmap Q&As
- PPM Pro Q3 2020 Roadmap Q&As
- PPM Pro September 2020 Release: Q&A Transcript
- 2021 QandAs
- PPM Pro Q&As from April 2021 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from August 2021 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from February 2021 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from January 13 2021 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from July 2021 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from June 2021 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from March 2021 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from May 2021 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from November 2021 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from October 2021 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from September 2021 Release Webinar
- 2022 QandAs
- Maximizing Value from PPM Pro: Customizing with Calculated Fields
- PPM Pro April 2024 Q&A
- PPM Pro August 2024 Q&A
- PPM Pro February 2024 Q&A
- PPM Pro June 2024 Q&A
- PPM Pro March 2024 Q&A
- PPM Pro May 2024 Q&A
- PPM Pro October 2024 Q&A
- PPM Pro Q&As from April 13 2022 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from February 16 2022 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from February 23 2022 Q1 Roadmap Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from January 19 2022 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from June 15th Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from March 16 2022 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from May 18 2022 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from October Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from September Release Webinar
- PPM Pro QAs from August Release Webinar
- PPM Pro QAs from July Release Webinar
- PPM Pro QAs from November Release Webinar
- PPM Pro QAs from Q3 RoadmapWebinar
- PPM Pro September 2024 Q&A
- PPM Pro Q&As from November 13 2019 Release Webinar
- PPM Pro Q&As from October 16 2019 Release Webinar
- Requests End-To-End Webinar Q&As - December 4, 2019
- 2020 QandAs
- New Features and Release Notes
- PPM Pro Videos
This video provides an overview of the report designer – this is where you build, edit, test, and run reports.
The report designer consists of a toolbar, design area, and a preview pane with real-time preview. Duration 5 min.

The report designer is where you create and edit reports by choosing the report type, selecting report data, formatting and positioning the data, running, testing, and iterating until you get the report you want. The WYSIWYG Preview Pane speeds this process along, so by all means, use a trial and error approach, it's better than a tome of documentation!
The report designer opens in a new browser tab when you create a new (click New on the Reports list), edit or copy an existing report, and consists of a Toolbar, a Design area, and the Preview pane.
Overview
Toolbar
The report designer toolbar has a few key functions to be aware of and which will make your life easier:
- Save - Simply saves your new report or all the changes since the last save.
- Save & Run - Saves your new report or all the changes since the last save and also opens the actual report in a new tab. Running the report allows you to test what options show up at initial runtime as well to see exactly how the report will appear to your viewers with actual data. Although the Preview area described below is also intended to show you what your viewers will see, it will display sample and not actual data in order to optimize design display performance.
- Cancel - Discards all changes since the last save. If you want to cancel creation of a new report and have not yet saved, then you will need to close the report designer tab.
- Undo - Incrementally reverts each change you have made, from most recent to less recent, up until you last saved. This is represented by the counter-clockwise circular arrow icon button.
- Redo - Incrementally recreates each change you have recently undone, from most recent to less recent, up until you last saved. This is represented by the clockwise circular arrow icon button.
Design Area
The design area is the main left hand section of the report designer. It can be collapsed, expanded, and resized to accommodate your needs. Its tabbed sections allow you to enter and select various design options that impact to whom, how, and where your report will appear:
- General - Enter basic details about the report, such as what the report is primarily about (Topic), what the report visualization form should be (Type), a Title for the report, and optionally a report Description.
- Data - Select the data fields that inform the report given its Type. Access the Field Options dialog where you can format data values.
- Display - Configure various headings, axis, legend, and other display options, including font, font style, size, and location, based on the report Type.
- Variable Settings - Configure at what level you want the report to be able to be run at and in what entity report grids it should appear (Scope). Based on the report Topic and what Data fields were selected, you can also configure initial Filters to limit the data shown in the report. For both Scope and Filters, you can optionally allow your viewers to initially change these at runtime and/or while viewing the report.
- Team - Controls who else can view, edit, and delete your report, given their permissions.
Preview Pane
The Preview pane is the right-hand section of the report designer. It can be resized to accommodate your needs. As you design your report, particularly after you have selected the minimal required data, it automatically updates to show the impact of your selections. For List reports, most design choices can be made within the Preview pane by using column header drop-down menu options (see WYSYWYZ Layout/Editing for List Reports for more details).
The Preview pane uses sample data so that it is snappy and responsive, enabling you to quickly see the implications of your design choices. Note that when showing Scope or Filters as View Options, they are shown within the Preview but do not affect the sample data. If ever you need to see how your report will look with actual data and test changing Scope or Filters on initial runtime or while viewing the report, simply click the toolbar Save & Run button and your report will open in a new tab.