Change in reporting behavior from 7.93 to 7.96 - no report at all when no records to report on

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John Heizer
John Heizer ✭
Ancient Membership Facilitator 3 Photogenic
in Blackbaud Raiser's Edge NXT®: General Discussion
Another change in behavior of RE I've found after our upgrade from 7.93 to 7.96.  In earlier versions, if I was running a canned report, even if the report returned no records, I'd at least get a page of the report criteria (I always put the report criteria as the first page of any report so I've got documentation of what the report includes).  Now I get nothing.  This has caused some issues.


For example, every month I run a series of reports that we use to balance RE with Finance.  Before when I ran a Write-Off report for the month even if I had no write-offs I'd get a page that showed that there were no results.  Now I get nothing and it can look like I might have failed to even run the report.


Has anyone found a way to force RE to print a report when there are no results?
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Comments

  • Aaron Rothberg
    Aaron Rothberg ✭
    Eighth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Name Dropper Photogenic
    I have not! If you need documentation that you did in fact run those reports, my suggestion won't help, but you could output a gift query and note there are no results in that query, although I'm not sure what value that might add. You would at least have an output that proves to yourself that you ran the report on a given date and that there were no results.
  • Jen Claudy
    Jen Claudy ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    The only workaround I can think of is to create a dummy gift with a write-off, and then you'll get your report.


    Or screenshot the notification that says there are no records and use that in place of your report.
  • Christine Cooke 2
    Christine Cooke 2 ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Yeah... I find this to be totally annoying also.  I have a series of reports I run monthly and every time I don't have a blank one with at least the heading I think I have forgotten to include one in the series.  Such of waste of time going back to double and triple check.  I have not found a work around except to keep a check list of the series and check off each one I run as I go to know I didn't miss any.  But that does not help you with the criteria page that you include.
  • John Heizer
    John Heizer ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 3 Photogenic
    Jen Claudy‍ unfortunately it's not just write-offs. I run dozens of reports for our month end where the results might be "No records returned" and I'd have to enter a dummy record for every one of those reports every month.


    We've got other reports that will show that there are no relevant transactions, I'll just have to adapt how we do our month end.


    It's just frustrating when BB makes this kind of change to how the program operates but doesn't document it in any way.
  • Aaron Rothberg
    Aaron Rothberg ✭
    Eighth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Name Dropper Photogenic
    John Heizer‍, I've figured out how to get you a report with a date on it. There won't be any data in there which may render the output useless for your needs, but I'll mention it anyway.


    Open your report, set your parameters, and click the Send as Mail button, and choose format: Acrobat Format and Destination: Application. This is what I see when I run a Gift Detail and Summary report with no results.

    ee7fa0f3e8b38741880406949c2cb9ff-huge-bl



    I can't imagine you would want to add this additional step to all of your reports and like I said this report may be useless for your needs, but it's another option.


     
  • Heather MacKenzie
    Heather MacKenzie ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    John Heizer‍ check around the... Detail area of the Format tab of the report - some (more than some?) have an option to include items with zero amounts.  I know the Campaign Performance Analysis does it, and I've seen that option on others.
  • John Heizer
    John Heizer ✭
    Ancient Membership Facilitator 3 Photogenic

    Heather MacKenzie:
    John Heizer‍ check around the... Detail area of the Format tab of the report - some (more than some?) have an option to include items with zero amounts.  I know the Campaign Performance Analysis does it, and I've seen that option on others.

    Good thought, but that only determines whether Gifts of $0.00 are included or excluded from the report (should a Gift of $0 be included in the count of number of Gifts received).  Some orgs use a $0 Gift as a placeholder but might not want it included in a count of total Gifts.

  • Heather MacKenzie
    Heather MacKenzie ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic

    John Heizer:

     

    Heather MacKenzie:
    John Heizer‍ check around the... Detail area of the Format tab of the report - some (more than some?) have an option to include items with zero amounts.  I know the Campaign Performance Analysis does it, and I've seen that option on others.

    Good thought, but that only determines whether Gifts of $0.00 are included or excluded from the report (should a Gift of $0 be included in the count of number of Gifts received).  Some orgs use a $0 Gift as a placeholder but might not want it included in a count of total Gifts.

     

    Then I'm being unclear.  I'll put up a screenshot if I can make that work.  I'm positive that what I'm talking about works.

  • Heather MacKenzie
    Heather MacKenzie ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Attempting to upload a screenshot...
  • Heather MacKenzie
    Heather MacKenzie ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    In the campaign performance analysis, when this is checked, campaigns with $0 in them still show up in my list when the report is generated.  If I'm understanding your need above correctly, this does work.  I'm sure that some reports are different in this area, in terms of what including the zero means for the report, but if this is one of your reports, than you can get what you need.  There are other reports that work this same way.
  • Sarah Getgood
    Sarah Getgood ✭
    Seventh Anniversary Facilitator 1 Photogenic
    I find that reports will still run/save if you use the export icon in the top left of the window - does that work for you?
  • Aaron Rothberg
    Aaron Rothberg ✭
    Eighth Anniversary Facilitator 2 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Hey John Heizer‍, just chiming in to say if the Performance Analysis reports meet your needs, Heather's suggestion to check the box to Include Campaigns with Zero Amounts works. I ran the report against an old campaign using today's date as the date range and I get the pop-up "No records meet specified criteria". If I check the box Heather referred to, I get a one-page report showing zero dollars because there are no gifts to display. Just to clarify this has nothing to do with gifts entered with a zero dollar amount. It has to do with printing out at least a one-page summary report when there are no gifts that meet the report criteria.

    317533dc0be6e3fc8b216a09f03545ce-huge-ca

     
  • Heather MacKenzie
    Heather MacKenzie ✭
    Tenth Anniversary Facilitator 4 Name Dropper Photogenic
    Thank you, Aaron Rothberg‍, for figuring out that clarification for us!

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