[thelist] Best Practices For Online Report Formatting

Burhan Khalid thelist at meidomus.com
Tue May 17 05:41:27 CDT 2005


Hello Everyone:

   I'm looking for any tools, pointers, stylesheets, etc. for formatting 
reports for both online viewing and printing.  The reports I'm talking 
about are not very complex -- user listings, profit/loss, sales, 
inventory, etc.

   I can display the reports in a crude way (as simple tables with 
alternating color rows).  Is there a best/recommended way to format 
these reports?  Also, what are the recommendations for interactivity? As 
an example, in my sales report, each product that is listed is linked to 
its desciption/meta information -- each supplier is linked to their 
record, etc. I have a feeling that this is not the correct way to do 
things, but since I'm only a developer I don't know quite how to fix it.

   Specifically for summary reports, is it recommended to have a link 
for each period report (quarterly, yearly, monthly) or just have a link 
for a report, then allow the user to pick the period?  Currently I have 
a menu Reports structured as:

Reports
  -> Registered Users
  -> Sales (Aggregates)
     -> Sold By Supplier
     -> Sold By Category
     -> Sold By Campaign
  -> Sales (Monthly)
     -> Sold By Supplier
     -> Sold By Category
     -> Sold By Campaign
  -> Sales (Yearly)
     -> Sold By Supplier
     -> Sold By Category
     -> Sold By Campaign

   The client is happy with the menu, but my fear is that if the amount 
of reports increases, this menu is going to get crazy and difficult to 
navigate.

   Looking forward to any suggestions.

Regards,
Burhan


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