Custom Report - what to do after marking people and selecting data fields?

RootsMagic
,
1

I’m trying to create a Custom Report in RM 10 of people with a certain Fact. I set up the columns okay, but am having problems after selecting people from a list.

  1. Next to “Include?” click “Select from list”
  2. Click “Mark” then click “By data fields”
  3. Choose data fields then click OK.
  4. A box gives the number of people that were marked.
  5. Click OK.
  6. Here is where I am stuck. My options are “Select” or “Cancel” and not matter what I select, it wants to start over selecting people.

It works fine if I had already created a Group and selected that, but I want to do this without creating a group first.

2

6 You should be on a screen of people with a check-mark on the list by their name. Select confirms that these are the people you want included in the report. You will then get a screen titled “Include which people”, again select OK.

Now you are back to the Main Screen where you “Execute the Report”

I agree that the process is not the clearest but it works for me under RM10.0.5 and Win11

1 Like
3

I can’t improve on the explanation by BobC. I’m an experienced user of RM’s Custom Reports feature, and sometimes I still get bitten by the same problem you described.

To run an RM Custom Report, there are three separate activities you have to complete: 1) define the columns for the report (or select a set of columns you have saved previously), 2) select the people for the report, and 3) execute the report. The workflow you go through for these three separate activities can very confusing. And a lot of first time users to RM’s Custom Reports think that selecting the people for the report is a part of defining the report. It isn’t. Defining the report is simply the step of defining the columns.

You can’t actually save the columns and the people as a complete whole when saving a report. All you can save is the columns. So when I’m running RM’s Custom Reports, I usually create a group of people ahead of time and use that group when running the report. Doing it that way does seem to make the workflow to run the report go a little smoother.

1 Like
4

Not sure all that you have on the Custom Report but there is an option on the Fact List report to include “People with a fact type:” and then select it. It would give you list of everyone with the fact and the date, place and description.

4 Likes
5

Thanks for the info. It sure wasn’t clear that I just needed to click Select and OK before generating the report.

6

Thanks for the help! You had made a very nice video for me the last time I asked something similar but you had used Groups in the video.

7

Thanks! That was a lot easier than the custom report.