Every
month, "Did You Know?" features
a tip to help you get the most from your
MEDITECH financial software.
July 2009
Did You Know the 6.0 Platform Features an
All-New Report Designer Tool?
MEDITECH's 6.0 platform features a brand
new Report Designer tool which helps
organizations gather data from throughout
the MEDITECH system for use in customized
reports. In developing the new Report
Designer, MEDITECH seized the opportunity
to completely redesign our reporting tool
from the ground up, to better help
customers with their diverse reporting
needs. We took customer feedback from
regional events, 6.0 early adopters, as
well as from customer proposals to create
the foundation for the new Report
Designer. Based on this feedback, one of
our primary goals was to create a Report
Designer which requires no MEDITECH-specific
programming knowledge, thereby making it
easier for anyone in the organization to
utilize the reporting tool.
Several of our 6.0 early adopter sites
are already expertly using the tool for
critical analysis, operations management,
departmental reporting, as well as for
handling requests from outside agencies
including file submissions for state
requirements or Medicare.
What Does the Report Designer Look
Like?
The new Report Designer (seen below) has
an intuitive Desktop which allows you to
quickly and easily navigate from one
screen to the next while creating a
report. Each of the function buttons on
the right-hand side serves a different
purpose -- including selecting the layout
of the page, the sort criteria, or even
the fields that will appear on the report.
Main Page of the Report
Designer
How is the Layout of a Report Defined?
Once you select the fields you want to
include on your report on the Selects
Function page, they are then placed onto
a Layout page using a single click auto-populate
feature (as seen below). This auto-populate
feature loads all fields, free text, and
labels onto the Layout page, where they
can be easily dragged to the desired
location. All of these fields, free text,
graphics, and labels are treated as cells.
From there, defining the layout of the
report is as simple as highlighting,
dragging, and dropping each cell into the
desired location on the report (as seen
below). The Layout page also allows you
to add additional fields you may not have
previously selected and adds them to the
Selects Function page. Additionally, the
Layout page allows you to draw lines and
boxes, using point-and-click navigation,
which will display on the report exactly
as they are represented on the Layout
page.
The Layout page allows
you to define the format of a report.
Additional Features
One key feature of particular interest to
customers is the elimination of
fragmenting. Furthermore, indexes are
automatically selected and ranked, so you
no longer have to search for the best
index. These are just a few of the
features of the new MEDITECH Report
Designer, and with the tool rapidly
evolving, there are already numerous new
features coming on the near horizon!
For more information about the features
or functionality of MEDITECH's 6.0 Report
Designer, please contact your Report
Writer Applications Specialist.