Report Packs - edmozley/freeitsm GitHub Wiki
Report Packs
Reporting β Packs Β· Requested by Enrique Cabrera Β· π οΈ How it works underneath: Report Packs β Developer Guide
A report pack is a multi-page document you design once β a cover, headings, charts, tables and your own commentary β and export as a PDF for whatever period you choose. The monthly service report stops being an afternoon of screenshots: pick the period, read the figures, write the summary, export.
The designer works like a word processor. There is a ribbon along the top, real pages with rulers in the middle, a list of blocks to drag in on the left and the properties of whatever you have selected on the right. What you see on the pages is exactly what goes into the PDF β the same line breaks, the same page breaks.
Making one
- Open Reporting β Packs and press New.
- Give it a name. It starts with a header showing your logo, the report's name and its dates, and a Summary heading with a paragraph to fill in.
- Drag blocks in from the left.
- Press Save (Ctrl+S) and Export PDF (Ctrl+P).
Copy makes your own copy of any pack you can open β including one somebody has shared with you to view only.
Adding blocks
The Blocks list on the left holds everything you can put in a pack. Type in the search box to narrow it (uptime, licences, priorityβ¦), and point at a block to see a preview with your real figures before you use it.
- Drag a block onto the page. A line shows where it will land.
- Drop it on the left or right edge of another block to put them side by side. If the row is full, room is made.
- Double-click a block in the list to add it after the selected block.
Pages are a grid of 12 columns. Blocks sit side by side until a row's 12 columns are used β two half-width charts, three thirds, a two-thirds table beside a third-width chart.
| To⦠| Do this |
|---|---|
| Change a block's width | Drag the handle on its side, or use Layout β Arrange, or the Width buttons in Properties |
| Change a chart's height | Drag the handle under it, or set Height in Properties |
| Move a block | Drag it, or Alt+β / Alt+β |
| Keep a block below, not beside, the one before | Tick Start a new row |
| Start a section on a new page | Select its heading and tick Start on a new page |
| Change what a chart shows | Select it β Group by, Chart type, Most shown and so on are in Properties |
Right-click any block for cut, copy, paste, duplicate, move, width and delete.
What's in the list
| Area | Blocks |
|---|---|
| Tickets | Ticket summary Β· tickets over time Β· by status, priority, category, analyst, team, department or origin Β· a list of the period's tickets |
| Service Status | Service uptime with a bar for every day and the incidents under each service Β· uptime table Β· incident log (every update, with its comment) Β· incident summary Β· headline figures |
| Software | By publisher Β· most installed applications Β· licences and renewals Β· headline figures |
| Assets and Intune | By type, operating system or status Β· warranties and leases ending Β· Intune compliance, operating systems and encryption Β· headline figures |
| Projects | Project summary Β· project health (a doughnut in green, amber and red) Β· project status table Β· milestones in the period Β· top project risks |
| Layout | Heading Β· text box Β· line Β· space Β· page break |
A block can be turned into its neighbour without starting again: Tickets by status becomes by priority by changing Group by, and a doughnut becomes a bar chart by changing Chart type.
Software, asset and Intune figures show the inventory as it is now, not as it was during the period β the block says so under its title.
The Projects blocks
For the monthly board pack. Health is worked out exactly as the Projects portfolio works it out, so a pack never shows a project green that its own page shows red.
| Block | What it shows | The period |
|---|---|---|
| Project summary | Live projects; how many are on track, at risk and off track; stages ending in the period | health tiles are now; stages ending are in the period |
| Project health | Live projects by health, in green, amber and red | now |
| Project status | One row per project: health pill, progress (60% (12/20)), current stage, target date, project manager, and a Why: line - the health note, or Beyond a tolerance |
now |
| Project milestones | Every stage end and target finish inside the period, marked Done, Missed (passed and not closed) or Due | in the period |
| Top project risks | The highest-scoring open risks, with a coloured score (15+ red, 8+ amber), the probability and impact words, the owner and the response plan | now |
Each has a Projects option: tick the ones to include, or leave them all unticked for every project in the pack's company. Project status can also show all projects, including on hold and closed, rather than only live ones, and its project manager column and Why: line can be switched off.
A pack shared with somebody who cannot open Projects shows them a placeholder in place of these blocks, never the figures.
Writing and formatting
Double-click a text box to type on the page. The Home tab then works on what you are writing:
- Font β size, bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, text colour, highlight, clear formatting
- Paragraph β bullets, numbering, indent, alignment (left, centre, right, justified)
- Styles β Normal, Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3
Click anywhere off the text, or press Esc, when you have finished. Pasted text arrives without its old formatting, so a report keeps its own look.
Header, footer and cover
Double-click the top or bottom of any page to edit the header or footer, or the cover page to edit the cover. They work like a text box, plus Insert β Fields:
| Field | Shows |
|---|---|
| Page number / Number of pages | Page 3 of 12 |
| Start of period / End of period | The period's dates, in your date format |
| Today's date | The day the PDF was made |
| Report title | The pack's name |
| Company | The company the pack is reporting on |
Insert β Logo puts your company logo (System β Branding) wherever the cursor is.
Switch the Cover page and a Contents page on from the Insert tab. The contents list every heading marked Show in the contents, with the page each one starts on. In Properties, with nothing selected, you can choose whether the header appears on the first page and whether a line runs under the header or above the footer.
The period and the company
The Data tab sets what the whole pack is about:
- Period β today, yesterday, this or last week, month, quarter or year, the last 7, 30 or 90 days, the last 12 months, or your own dates.
- Company β if you work with several companies: the one you are working in, all of them, or one in particular.
Every block uses it, and the header's dates follow it. "Last month" means your last month β the period runs from midnight to midnight in your own timezone.
Refresh fetches the figures again.
Page setup and design
- Layout β paper size (A4, Letter, Legal, A3), portrait or landscape, and margins (Normal, Narrow, Wide, or your own in Properties).
- Design β the font (Helvetica, Times or Courier), the text size, the colours of headings, accents and table headers, the chart colours, and striped table rows.
Sharing
A pack is private until you share it. On the Report Packs list, press Share and add:
| Who | Means |
|---|---|
| Analyst | One person |
| Team | Everyone in the team, now and later |
| Department | Everyone whose profile has that department, however it is spelt |
Each can view or edit.
- View β open it, change the period to look at a different month, and export it. They cannot change the design (they can Copy it to make their own).
- Edit β change it too. If two people edit at once, the second to save is told who saved first and can reload or save theirs over it β nobody's work disappears silently.
Only the owner can share or delete a pack.
π Everybody sees a pack with their own access. A block from a module somebody has not been given shows them a note instead of figures, and they only see the companies they work with. Sharing a pack never shows anybody data they could not already see.
Exporting
Export PDF makes the document exactly as the pages look on screen. The text is real text β you can search it and copy from it. Long tables, incident logs and uptime lists continue onto the next page with their column headings repeated, and a heading never sits alone at the bottom of a page.
The file is named after the pack and the period, for example Monthly service report - 01.09.2026 to 30.09.2026.pdf.
β οΈ The PDF uses the standard Helvetica, Times and Courier fonts, which cover English and the other Western European languages, including Spanish accents and Γ±. Text in other scripts β Chinese, Arabic, Hindi or Cyrillic, for example β shows on screen but appears as ? in the PDF. The status bar warns you when a pack contains any.
Shortcuts
| Keys | Does |
|---|---|
| Ctrl+S | Save |
| Ctrl+P | Export the PDF |
| Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y | Undo / redo |
| Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V | Copy, cut and paste the selected block β also between packs |
| Ctrl+D | Duplicate the selected block |
| Delete | Delete the selected block |
| β / β | Select the previous or next block |
| Alt+β / Alt+β | Move the selected block |
| Enter | Edit the selected text |
| Ctrl + mouse wheel | Zoom |