Detailed Field Information Related Information Examples & Tutorials

Report Options

The Report Options form stores settings that apply to a particular report. This allows you to specify different settings for individual reports depending on your requirements. You can choose a destination, a filename, user rights, set the margins and page height, give your report a number and switch on NCOA check when using letter service.


Report Options form

Additional options are available when you select Other from the Destination field pick list. For instance, you can create special reports to print out of MS Word or Word Pad using mail merge.

tip.gif You should use this form to enter any custom settings that you want to apply to your whole report. At the very least, you should ensure that Collect!'s default settings are restored, by entering RESET codes in the Printer Initialization Codes and Printer Termination Codes fields.

tip.gif When importing or exporting reports, settings in the Report Options are imported or exported as well.

Destination

Choose an output device from the pick list. Click the arrow to display the choices. This setting should be filled in, especially if you intend to print this report in your daily batch letters.

Printer - Send the report or letter directly to a printer.

Screen - Preview and edit your report on the screen before printing.

File - Send your report to a file which you can later edit using a word processor, or import into a spreadsheet or database. You can enter a filename in the field labeled Filename or enter a filename when the report is printed.

Spreadsheet - Print quickly and easily to your spreadsheet program.

Browser - Format the report as an HTML page and view it in the browser.

Other - Use with CSV files or Tab delimited reports, or in combination with RTF reports. A filename is entered in the field labeled Filename. A field labeled Redirect To becomes visible with this selection and you can enter a filename or a web site to redirect your report output to.

Email - Send this letter directly to the account's Email address. When you select "Email" as your Destination and additional field becomes visible, a check box labeled "Use SMS." Please refer to Help topic, SMS Email Setup for more information.

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File Name

Enter the File Name here if you intend to send the report to a file. By default, files are placed in the root folder of your Collect! application. You can specify a drive and the name of an existing folder, if you wish to be more specific.

Examples:

To save the file in the CV11 folder, enter FILENAME.EXT, for example, myreport.txt.

To save the file on drive F:\ enter F:\FILENAME.EXT, for example, F:\myreport.txt.

To save the file in F:\ALLREPORTS enter F:\ALLREPORTS\FILENAME.EXT, for example, F:\Allreports\myreport.txt. In this case, the folder ALLREPORTS must already exist or you will get an error message.

To use this field with *.rtf or *.csv files, enter the path and name of the file. For example, LETTER1.RTF to open the RTF file or MAILMERGE.CSV to print to a CSV file.

tip.gif When you choose 'File' from the Destination pick list and enter a complete path in the File Name field, the Print Output Options dialog will automatically display this information when you choose to print the report. You will see that 'File' will be marked as the Destination and the path you entered as the File Name with be displayed in the Print Output Options 'Path' field.

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File Name With Date/Time Stamp

If you enter simply the extension, .csv or .rtf (without the asterisk!) in the File Name field, Collect! will assign a file name to the report when you print it. Collect adds an operator, date, time and increment stamp. For example, OWN-20080305-115656-1.csv.


File Name Setting for OpID/Date/Time Stamp

By default, files are stored in the CV11\bin\global\masterdb\letters folder. For example, CV11\bin\global\masterdb\letters\OWN-20080305-115656-1.csv.

You can also enter your own location. For example, C:\myfolder\.csv will output your files to C:\myfolder. For example, C:\myfolder\OWN-20080305-115656-1.csv.

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File Name With Use SMS

When you have switched ON "Use SMS" with an Email destination, you can enter an SMS Domain Name in the File Name field. Please refer to Help topic, SMS Email Setup for more information.

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Browse

Select the BROWSE button to navigate to a folder of your choice for saving this report to FILE. Enter a name for your report and a valid extension, such as CSV or TXT. Collect! will display the path. When the report is printed, it will be saved to the folder you selected.

tip.gif By default, reports are saved to your letters folder so you do not have to select a folder here. This is just a convenience for users who need more flexibility for storing report files.

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Letter Number

This is used to identify letter templates being sent to a letter service provider. The number you select in this field will match the setup letter number your provider has created to match that specific letter. Each letter you plan on sending to the mailing house needs to have a unique number. This number is printed in the debtor's information sent to the Letter Service and is used by them to print each letter correctly. Generally, samples of the report and report body codes must be sent to your service provider of choice as part of your setup process with them.

tip.gif When you print your letter batch to a service bureau, the system will only output to text file those letters that have a letter number.

See Also:

- Letter Service

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NCOA Check

This switch is used for Letter Service. When it is switched ON with a check mark, a special code is included in the Letter Service output file. This tells the Letter Service to perform a National Change of Address check on this Debtor.

tip.gif When printing your Letter Service batch, switch ON 'Print to unverified addresses' in Batch Letter Options to force Collect! to print to all debtors in the batch, even those with "bad" addresses, which means the 'Address OK' switch is OFF in the Debtor form.

Please refer to How To Use Letter Service for more details.

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Don't Prompt On File Overwrite

Switch this ON with a check mark to stop Collect! from showing you a prompt if you are printing to file and the file already exists. When this switch is ON, Collect! will automatically overwrite the existing file that has the same name as the file you are printing.

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User Level

This can be used to limit the Users allowed to print certain reports. You pick from the list of User levels and choose one. Anyone with that level or better will be able to print that letter or report.

For example, if you enter a 10 here, only Users at level 10 can print this report. If you enter a 20 here, all Users at levels 10 and 20 are allowed to print the report. Enter a 60 here, and all Users from levels 10 to level 60 are allowed to print the report.

tip.gif What actually happens is that when the User picks the Print command, only those reports that they are allowed to print appear in the list of available reports. Thus, the User is never aware of the reports they don't have access to.

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Min 1

The MIN and MAX fields allow you to set up to 3 ranges of Users per report. A User level that falls within any of the selected ranges will have access to the report. Otherwise, they won't be able to run the report.

Press F2 while on the MIN or MAX field to display a pick list of User Levels that you can select from.

Example:

Min 1 -- 10 Max 1 -- 20 This range encompasses all user levels between 10 and 20. They can run the report.

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Max 1

The MIN and MAX fields allow you to set up to 3 ranges of Users per report. A User level that falls within any of the selected ranges will have access to the report. Otherwise, they won't be able to run the report.

Press F2 while on the MIN or MAX field to display a pick list of User Levels that you can select from.

Example:

Min 1 -- 10 Max 1 -- 20 This range encompasses all user levels between 10 and 20. They can run the report.

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Min 2

The MIN and MAX fields allow you to set up to 3 ranges of Users per report. A User level that falls within any of the selected ranges will have access to the report. Otherwise, they won't be able to run the report.

Press F2 while on the MIN or MAX field to display a pick list of User Levels that you can select from.

Example:

Min 2 -- 60 Max 2 -- 80 This range encompasses all user levels between 60 and 80. They can run the report.

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Max 2

The MIN and MAX fields allow you to set up to 3 ranges of Users per report. A User level that falls within any of the selected ranges will have access to the report. Otherwise, they won't be able to run the report.

Press F2 while on the MIN or MAX field to display a pick list of User Levels that you can select from.

Example:

Min 2 -- 60 Max 2 -- 80 This range encompasses all user levels between 60 and 80. They can run the report.

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Min 3

The MIN and MAX fields allow you to set up to 3 ranges of Users per report. A User level that falls within any of the selected ranges will have access to the report. Otherwise, they won't be able to run the report.

Press F2 while on the MIN or MAX field to display a pick list of User Levels that you can select from.

Example:

Min 3 -- 90 Max 3 -- 95 This range encompasses all user levels between 90 and 95. They can run the report.

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Max 3

The MIN and MAX fields allow you to set up to 3 ranges of Users per report. A User level that falls within any of the selected ranges will have access to the report. Otherwise, they won't be able to run the report.

Press F2 while on the MIN or MAX field to display a pick list of User Levels that you can select from.

Example:

Min 3 -- 90 Max 3 -- 95 This range encompasses all user levels between 90 and 95. They can run the report.

RANGES

Using each Min/Max value, we have set three separate ranges for the report.

Min 1 -- 10 Max 1 -- 20 All users with user levels from 10 to 20
Min 2 -- 60 Max 2 -- 80 All users with user levels from 60 to 80
Min 3 -- 90 Max 3 -- 95 All users with user levels from 90 to 95

So any operators with a user level between 10 and 20, 60 and 80, and 90 to 95 can run this report. Operators who do not fall within these ranges will not even see the report when they view the list of reports.

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Page Height

This field is normally not needed. If you are using Print via Device Context, your printer will automatically handle the page height. This field does come into play when you are printing to Printer Stream, or controlling the number of lines to force the printer to print headers and footers for more demanding report layouts.

This field specifies the number of lines that can be printed on a page. Typically, this is 66 lines for dot matrix printers and 60 lines for laser printers.

If your report uses small fonts, you can set the page height to 88, or to whatever works for the paper size you are printing on.

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Page Width

This field is normally not needed. If you are using Print via Device Context, your printer will automatically handle the page width. This field does come into play when you are printing to Printer Stream, or controlling the width manually to force the printer to print a particularly demanding format or layout.

This specifies the number of columns that will fit on the page. If you are printing and you find that lines are being chopped off on the right edge, try increasing the page width.

Normally the width is 80 characters for standard Courier font 10 cpi and 132 characters for a standard Courier compressed font.

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Top Margin

This tells the printer the number of lines to be left blank at the top of each page. It is an easy way to print to paper you already have letterhead printed on. If you leave this blank, you can leave the right number of empty lines in the report body itself to adjust the text down below the preprinted letter head paper.

tip.gif Margin settings can also be controlled by using graphic commands. See How To Position Text And Graphics for details.

tip.gif When printing to the screen, the top margin is ignored. After you review or edit the letter, you can print with the F5 key and you can then specify a top margin before printing.

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Left Margin

This field specifies the number of columns on the left of the page to skip before printing each line. If you have a left margin that applies to the complete report, this is an easy way to control the left margin.

Examples: Specify 5 for a margin of 1/2 inch.
Specify 10 for a margin of 1 inch.
Specify 15 for a margin of 1 1/2 inches

If you wish to have different left margins set in different sections of the report, then leave this field blank and control your left margins within the report with the @LM command in the report body.

tip.gif Margin settings can also be controlled by using graphic commands. See How To Position Text And Graphics for details.

tip.gif When printing to the screen, the left margin is ignored. After you review or edit the letter, you can print with the F5 key and you can then specify a left margin before printing.

You should not try not to use the Left Margin and @LM commands in the same report. Left Margin uses characters and depends on the size of the font. The @LM command uses 100ths of an inch. Combining these two can produce erratic results.

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Eject Form After Printing

This function causes the printer to feed a new page into the printer after printing a report. Normally, this should always be set to NO.

tip.gif Use the @f command at the bottom of your Report Body if you want to feed a new page after printing your report.

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Printer Initialization Codes

This command allows you to set up printer control codes to be executed before the report or letter is printed. This includes page orientation and custom fonts. Also, you can ensure that certain default settings are being used for this report. Using Initializing codes will also help the printer to swap its internal code pages, if you need to print letters that are of different languages. One letter French, the next Spanish, and then back to English for example.

tip.gif When different reports are printed at the same time, formatting from one report can carry over to another, with undesirable effects. To ensure that this does not happen, enter appropriate codes here.

For instance, if you want to set the printer command codes back to their default values, set the print orientation to portrait, and set the print font to A.

To do this, enter the following command line:

@*PA

The * will force a reset of the printer, the P will set the page orientation to Portrait, the A will set the printer font to Courier 10 cpi.

Another example sets the page orientation to landscape and uses a smaller font.

@*LF

The * will force a reset of the printer, the L will set the page orientation to Landscape, the F will set the printer font to Courier 16.66 cpi or compressed font.

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Printer Termination Codes

Enter the printer control codes to be executed after the report or letter has been printed. Codes entered in the Printer Initialization Codes field must be "turned off" in the Printer Termination Codes fields. Otherwise, the report's formatting may carry into the next letter or report that you print.

tip.gif When different reports are printed at the same time, formatting from one report can carry over to another, with undesirable effects. To ensure that this does not happen, enter appropriate codes here.

If you want to reset the printer control codes back to their default values, reverse the order of the codes entered in the Printer Initialization Codes field to "turn off" each setting.

For example, using the sample codes shown above, in Printer Initialization Codes, we will enter the appropriate termination codes for each case.

@AP* turns off @*PA

@FL* turns off @*LF

Please refer to Printer Control Code for information on codes that can be used.

tip.gif Using Termination codes will also help the printer to swap its internal code pages if you need to print letters that are of different languages. One letter French, the next Spanish and then back to English for example.

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Redirect To

This field is visible only when you select Other in the Destination field.

Use this field to enter a document that you want your report to print to. For instance, you can use this for merging data from Collect! into a label template created in MS Word. Enter the name of the template here. Place both the template and the file to merge in the same folder.

Send the report to a CSV file and use the Redirect To field to specify an MS Word template DOC to open with merged data from Collect!. Place both the template and the file to merge in the same folder.

tip.gif You can use a relative path here, for example, ".\styles\mailmerge.csv" (that is a dot and a slash and then the folder name and filename.)

This field can hold the name of a file to print to when you are producing a tab delimited report.


Report Options with Other Destination and Redirect To

tip.gif If you put a URL in this field, Collect! will use your web browser to go to the web site when you print the report.

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Use SMS

This check box is visible only when you have selected "Email" as the Destination for your report. When you switch it ON with a check mark, you can type an SMS Domain Name into the File Name field. If you leave the File Name field blank, Collect! will use the Default Domain Name set in the SMS Email Setup form. Please refer to Help topic, SMS Email Setup for more information.

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Help

Select this for help on the Report Options form and links to related topics on creating and printing reports and letters.

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Cancel

Select this button to ignore any changes you may have made and then return to the previous form.

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OK

Selecting this button will save any data you have entered and return you to the previous form.

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See Also

- Report Definition
- Report Body
- Printer Control Code
- Default Printer Codes
- How To Position Text And Graphics

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