The fundamental issue here I think is that we erred on the side of giving too much flexibility. That combined with a complex underlying data model makes things confusing. The engine can literally do *almost* anything. It's a programming environment in a way. You should see the stuff people have done with it - it even surprises us.

I think the solution is to reduce the choices. We should just have "Live List", Labels, Envelopes, Estimates and Reports (with make simple report as a convenience - which needs improving). That should eliminate the confusion. Maybe we'll retain a "advanced" for the crazy ones.

So if you just work with the choices I mentioned above, it should help a lot.
As far as the data source question - on table and on group by - just use "Standard Filter". Ignore the rest.

For me the most useful thing that Daylite could do is to make those report templates something the user could edit. I think the overabundance of choices would be far easier to deal with if we could reference an existing template and change the things we need to change.

The ones we have are editable - since it does not make sense to edit the ones contained in Daylite itself (each upgrade would wipe out your changes), we offer you to create your own by using one of ours as a "starting point". You can then edit them to your hearts content and name them whatever you want.

AJ, I don't think the functionality is bad in fact the exposure of the programmatic interface is great. But as I've stressed before it is all about progressive disclosure. Only expose what 80% of the users need all the time with additional interfaces exposed beyond that.

I think all you need to do is to unify the notion of Reports and Layouts. Everything is a report. You should have options to say run report on selected objects or all.

For example the Reports dialog should have layouts as well that a user can then select and then the pane on the right could show an option run on all contacts or currently selected contacts for example.

Just doing that would clean up a lot of confusion I think.

Also have a single wizard that walks users through the process of creating a report (this includes a layout).

You now have a single concept, report that is all in one place, that a user can then create new ones and mange existing one.

The API is absolutely necessary... but it is a more sophisticated feature that Users will not first explore.

Remember you want to make it as easy as possible for new users (and existing users) to understand and use DayLite.

Unifying the reports/layout menus/dialogs will make it a lot more obvious and will convert new users.

You guys are very close to having critical mass with DayLite but it is not quite there.

I heartily agree with Andrew, AJ - don't remove functionality or robustness from the reports/layout modules but instead implement his suggestions for making the interface more approachable for us non-technical users. You could put all the really fancy technical stuff under an "advanced users" tab, for instance, and the rest of us may never have to go there but it will be great to have it available for those that need the functionality.

The wizard idea is an excellent one too, Andrew!

This is worth a good deal of effort and usability testing with the Daylite end-users. I'm sure that many of us would love to contribute our ideas and creativity to an interactive development effort.

Daylite keeps getting better and better, and I agree that Daylite is very close to attaining critical mass and will soon be helping a lot more Mac users (and switchers!) run their businesses with amazing efficiency and results.

Another in agreement... For good or bad, printing is not dead, and even if not sent to a printer, "reports" are the basis of PDFs that are transfered electronically.

- Merge "reports" and "print layouts" concept. As stated earlier, everything is a report. Some reports let the software pull data, others are based on user selection.
- Redo the interface for the report generator - most non-intuitive interface I've seen in years, especially the right hand side.
- Make the few layouts that are included editable. "Save As" becomes the default reply when "Save" is selected.

Printing a single note in a desired font with a desired layout shouldn't be so challenging. Standing by for some tweaks on this.

I agree with the above statements. One of the things that gave me pause when considering Daylite was the lack of support/clarity in the report generation area. I am hopeful that Marketcircle is improving this lot in Daylite 2.0, as well as providing an adequate number of basic reports that let users to conduct simple business functions, while still allowing Daylite partners who develop report, HUDs, etc. to provide services for more demanding users or those with more complicated business needs.

I think I saw this idea somewhere in the forums: A report should be as easy to create as Smart lists.

If the User wants to finesse the design, that'd be editable via a similar way as report design today (minus the right side).

And, of course, there should be a possibility for the maniacs to go under the hood

So to sum up:
1) Choose info for report to generate (Smart list).
2) Change report design (by moving thins around).
3) Open the hood and dive in.

quote:

Originally posted by AJ:
The ones we have are editable - since it does not make sense to edit the ones contained in Daylite itself (each upgrade would wipe out your changes), we offer you to create your own by using one of ours as a "starting point". You can then edit them to your hearts content and name them whatever you want.

Um, did I miss something here? I have been specifically and repeatedly told by Marketcircle/Daylite that your report templates are NOT editable or useable as a starting point.

Here is a link to a previous request for help:
http://forums.marketcircle.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/73910...921056854#7921056854

When I try to create a new report or layout, it asks me if I want to use something as a starting point, but I am given no options.

The only way I can find to edit existing templates is to follow this advice posted by Oscar. Finding it is no problem, but adding new information to it requires an expert, I think. And wouldn't editing this fall into your "will be wiped out by upgrades" category?

<<You can find it by going right clicking the Daylite Icon in your Applications folder and selecting display package contents.

Contents -> Resources -> English.lprog -> Reporting Templates

Look for the "Contact Summary.dlrpt" report and make a copy of on your desktop. This is also a package so right click and select display package contents. You will have to edit the Template.rtf file. Once edited you will need to drop it back into the package.>>

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Evy,

quote:

Originally posted by Evy:
When I try to create a new report or layout, it asks me if I want to use something as a starting point, but I am given no options.

This was exactly my problem as well.

But it seemed that this was because I wanted to use a Page layout and there wasn't a template for me to start from.

There are at least basic versions of the other kinds of document, which is a help.

I'd like to see a full set of templates like the legacy ones as well though.

Thanks to the hint about hacking the old ones RTF files. I managed to produce the quick contact summary I needed this way.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Paul Freeman,

Creating reports should be easy. I know that is over simplication, but I am completely stumped when creating reports.

It should be as simple as choosing data fields and the parameters. The saving it for future use. Print or Email.

The problem is if you are not computer savy...creating reports without wizards is difficult.

Christian

Have any templates been provided yet?

"Captain, we need more power!" Yes indeed. I did find something that MIGHT help, called On-Target Reports

I haven't tried this but it's possible it might be integrated with Daylite to provide easier reporting capabilities. I told them at Marketcircle about this today so they could look into it.

The point-of-sale software LightSpeed from Xsilva makes extensive use of On-Target Reports in their software. LightSpeed also runs on OpenBase, as does Daylite, so it seems that On-Target Reports ought to integrate with Daylite fairly easily. Over to AJ and the engineers...

Kevin, or Marketcircle Team,

Please keep us posted about this!

I have since spoken directly with the developer of On-Target Reports and also had a correspondence with someone at Marketcircle and have encouraged a dialogue between the two companies. It was pointed out by the Marketcircle rep that due to the depth and complexity of Daylite, implementing the On-Target reports might not be an easy task. It might be better for Daylite to improve upon its own reporting engine rather than trying to plug something else in.

I then offered a number of suggestions for making the existing reports engine more user-friendly. I'd appreciate it if any other users would also chip-in their ideas to the folks at Marketcircle. Meanwhile, here are some of my own suggestions:

The main problems I ran into in trying to use the existing reports engine were:

A) it was not clear WHERE to find the data (fields) I wanted and 
B) the field names themselves were not always intuitive (too much "code-y" stuff!).

If you could create a drop-down or checkbox menu system that went like this:

Data Source

Module (Contact, Calendar, Project, Opportunity, Etc.)
  Table_Name (in plain English first, THEN followed by the official programming name)
  Field_Name (in plain English first, THEN followed by the official programming name)

The user would simply place his cursor on the reports design screen or in a box that he created, then click on the Data Source area, select the appropriate Module, then the Table_Name, then the Field_Name, and, voila! - he is done!

The trick to making this work would be for Daylite to have an internal reference table that could translate the arcane programmer-language tables, keys and field names into the plain-English equivalents, so that when a user selected, say, "Birthday" from the drop-down list or checkbox, DL would know that he was referring to a specific field that might be named something like "contact_ref_bd_date" or whatever the programmers call that field in DL's tables. 

Strip-out the programmer-ese and replace with simple English and you have handled 90% of end-user problems with using the reports engine. Also, make it SUPER OBVIOUS where to pull the needed data from, by organizing the reports engine Data Source menu in a way that mirrors the structure of DL: Contacts, Organizations, Opportunities, Projects, etc. so it is easy to find the tables and fields one is looking for. 

(Another idea would be to provide an additional, drop-down MASTER LIST of all tables and field names so that users who are more familiar with DL reports could zoom through and select just what they need. But again, it should be written to be very very clear.)

Finally, provide enough DOCUMENTATION and a GLOSSARY so that users can understand the reports engine all on their own without having to come crying for help on the forums. 

Do a good Beta program as you develop the module so you have plenty of opportunity for end-user feedback before finalizing the reports engine. 

The above can be done and I don't think it would be all that difficult to implement by a good programmer. This. along with the great work you are doing with syncing and iPhone (Daylite Touch) would bring Daylite up to "killer app" status in my opinion.