Defining Custom Reports allows you to produce reports with the information you want to see in a format that you can control. They can then be viewed with the built-in Report Viewer, printed, or saved into files using any of a variety of formats. The following describes the fields and buttons found on the Custom Report Properties dialog when creating or editing a Custom Report definition.
Dialog Field Definitions and Buttons
Custom Report Name: A default name will be provided; you should change it to something meaningful, and it must be unique.
Report Title: This is the title which will appear on each page of your report; this field is required.
Replication: indicates which simulation replication results to include in the report. If the model is only set to run one replication, then 1 will be the only choice in the selection list. If multiple replications are set, then each replication will be listed along with Sum of Replications and Average of Replications. Replication only applies if simulation results are included in the report.
Confidence Interval: only enabled when Average of Replications is selected for Replication. The choices are None, 90%, 95%, and 99%. As with Replication, Confidence Interval only applies if simulation results are included in the report.
Insert New Items Above Selected Item: enabled when any item in the report item list on the right is selected. When selected, new items added to the report item list are added above the selected item instead of at the end of the report item list.
Comment: an optional field where you may enter a brief description of the report.
OK: Closes the dialog and saves your custom report into the model.
Cancel: Closes the dialog and discards any changes you have made.
Help: Displays this Help information for the dialog.
Remove, Remove All, Move Up, and Move Down: used for managing report items already in the report item list. Remove All is enabled when there is at least one item in the report item list and empties the report item list. Remove is enabled when one or more items are selected in the report item list and removes the selected items from the report item list. Move Up and Move Down are enabled when only one item is selected in the report item list and adjust the placement in the list of the selected item.
The buttons under Select Report Content are used to add items to the report item list. There are two groups of buttons: Values and Items. The Values buttons (Entity, Resource, Activity, Connector, Time Stamp, and Model Attribute) allow individual statistical values to be added to the report Item list. The Items buttons (Report Categories and Page Break) allow the addition of statistical and non-statistical information. There are no restrictions on the report item list. Items can be listed in any order, and items can be duplicated.
Values Buttons: offer the same values as the same-named buttons on the Custom Plot Properties dialog. Values are added to the report item list in the same way as values are added to the plot list.
Items Buttons: As the name suggests, the Page Break button simply adds a page break to the report Item list. Page breaks can also be added through the Report Categories button. Note that page breaks are not required but are useful for separating different categories of information.
Properties: enabled when the selected item in the report item list is configurable. Double-clicking a configurable report item is the same as selecting one and clicking this button. Configurable report items include Header, Line, Bar Chart and Pie Chart. For a Header, you provide the header text and font attributes. For a Line, you select its style, size (thickness) and color. For charts you'll be see the Bar Chart Properties or Pie Chart Properties.
For an in-depth discussion of Custom Reports, see Chapter 18 of the SIMPROCESS User's Manual.