The browser's Comparison report brings together data from the selected period for comparison. You can compare proportions of records, logged hours, and planned and actual task values. Check the data, period and calculation method before interpreting the figures.
Open or add a Comparison report
Open Report pages in the Dashboard group in the main menu and select a report page. Open an existing Comparison report or select Add new report on the page, find Comparison and drag it onto the page. For instructions on setting up a page, see Creating and copying a report page.
Adding, permanently saving and copying reports require an administrator. Copying also requires report page add-ons to be activated. Without add-ons, one report page is available, and each report type can only be added to the page once.
A new Comparison report defaults to tasks, creation date, comparison by folder, comparison to the total amount and the previous calendar year. Select the comparison points and check the defaults before using the report.
Select the data and comparison basis
Select Settings in the report's title bar. In the settings panel's Comparison section, first select Source to compare, then Timestamp selection and Comparison definition. Next, under Comparison points, select the folders, customers or other items whose values you want to see side by side.
| Data | Comparison bases |
|---|---|
| Tasks | Folder, work order, customer, task template, Category tag, Estimated working time / Spent hours, and Estimated Costs / Actual Costs. |
| Service requests | Folder, customer and category. |
| Messages | Message type. Comparison counts messages; it does not calculate the sum or average of their measurement values. |
| Spots | Folder and Device card. The Device card is determined by the Spot's folder. |
| Activity Log | Folder, work order, customer, task template, and Tasks / Service requests. The values are hours, not numbers of entries. |
Selecting comparison points and filtering the data are separate actions. Open All filters in the settings panel to filter the source data by, for example, folder, responsibility or status. The filters shown depend on the data source. The normal source data is also restricted by the viewer's access rights, but the separate calculations described below have exceptions.
Changing the data source clears the comparison basis, changes the timestamp and removes filters that do not apply to the new source. Check all selections again after changing the source.
Define what the period means
For tasks, Timestamp selection offers Creation date, Completion time and Due date. Completion time uses the completion date saved in the task. A comparison based on the creation or due date does not itself restrict tasks to completed ones: select the required statuses separately in All filters. A record is excluded from the normal time filter if the selected date is missing.
For service requests, messages and Activity Log entries, the timestamp is Creation date. An entry's creation date is different from the work's start or end time. For Spots, the options are Creation date and Update time; switching to Spots selects Update time.
Select a period using Tme period for the data above the report chart. A fixed date range keeps the same dates. A relative week, month or year period changes over time: Based on calendar periods uses calendar periods, and Starting from today uses a rolling period. Date boundaries use the user's time zone; the start and end dates of a fixed range are included as full days. See also Report time periods and filters.
Interpret the proportions in count comparisons
When Compare to total amount is not selected, a group's proportion is calculated by dividing its count by the sum of the selected groups' counts. Proportions are rounded to two decimal places, and any rounding difference in the total is corrected in the largest proportion. If the total count of the selected groups is zero, their calculated proportions are zero.
When the option is selected, the group's count is divided by a total count retrieved separately. Remaining is the difference between one hundred percent and the sum of the selected proportions. The total count generally does not use the restrictions in All filters, although the selected groups' figures do. For example, a status filter can reduce a group's count without changing the total count.
For example, two selected message types contain 2 and 3 messages. When compared with each other, their proportions are 40% and 60%. If the complete set of messages accessible during the same period contains 10 messages, comparison to the total amount gives 20%, 30% and Remaining 50%.
What the total count includes depends on the comparison basis:
- Comparison by folder is based on Spots linked to folders and their tasks or service requests. Data not linked to a folder is excluded from this total.
- Comparison by customer is based on the customer of the Spot's folder. Data without this customer link is excluded.
- The total count for task comparisons by work order excludes tasks without a work order and tasks belonging to closed or deleted work orders.
- Comparison by task template excludes tasks without a task template from the total count.
- In task comparisons by Category tag, groups are counted from category links, but the total count is the number of unique tasks with a category link. Comparison by service request category excludes service requests without a category from the total count.
- The total count for comparison by message type is the number of all messages accessible during the same period.
Comparison by folder includes subfolders. If you select both a parent folder and its subfolder, the same data can belong to both groups. A task belonging to multiple categories can also be counted in multiple groups. In comparisons between selected groups, the denominator is then the sum of the groups, rather than the number of unique records. When comparing to the total amount, the proportions can add up to more than 100%; a negative Remaining proportion is replaced with zero. Use mutually exclusive groups if you want to interpret the proportions as a breakdown of the whole.
Comparison of Spots by Device card is an exception: Spots for the selected device cards are counted using a separate query that does not use the report's time filter, other filters or the source data's access restrictions. The total count takes access rights into account and includes only Spots whose folder has a device card, but it also does not use the time filter. Do not interpret this as a comparison of the selected period or filtered data.
Interpret hours and costs
Group comparisons for Activity Log add up the saved minutes linked to tasks and service requests and divide the sum by 60. Other entry types are excluded from the source data. An ongoing entry does not yet have a saved number of minutes, so its accumulating time is not added to the sum. The minutes for a finished entry are rounded up to a whole minute when saved.
The values for hour groups remain in hours even when comparison to the total amount is disabled. When it is enabled, Remaining is the difference between the total hours retrieved separately and the hours in the selected groups. In comparisons by work order and task template, the groups and total are based on the task Activity Log entries linked to them. Comparison by customer requires a customer link on the folder. The total hours for comparison by folder are not restricted by the viewer's access rights, so they may include data outside the selected groups that the user cannot access. With overlapping groups, the Remaining hours can be negative.
Tasks / Service requests divides the saved hours from the filtered Activity Log entries into two groups. Comparison to the total amount is not used in this mode.
Estimated working time / Spent hours compares planned task durations with logged working time falling within the period. The planned value adds up the planned durations of tasks whose selected timestamp falls within the period. The actual value includes only the portion of the duration between the start and end times of finished task Activity Log entries that overlaps the period. Each entry's overlapping duration is truncated to whole minutes, and the hour totals are rounded to two decimal places. Service request hours and ongoing entries are excluded from this actual value.
This working time comparison does not use the normal filtered source data to calculate either figure. Its separate queries take access rights into account, but folder and status filters, for example, cannot restrict the planned and actual values in the same way. The actual value may also include work on tasks whose selected timestamp falls outside the planned value's period. Planned duration is not the sum of working time reserved for users.
Estimated Costs / Actual Costs adds up the estimated costs of the filtered tasks. Actual costs are retrieved separately from the saved costs of completed tasks; the task's selected timestamp must fall within the period. This therefore does not filter costs by their own entry date. Both totals are rounded to two decimal places. Normal filters do not restrict actual costs in the same way as estimated costs. Comparison to the total amount is not used in this mode either.
Select the presentation and check the result
Open Report settings in the settings panel and select Chart type: Bar, Pie chart, Pie chart 3D or Donut chart, which displays a ring. Selections update the report data without a separate save action.
The percentage text in pie and donut charts is recalculated from the total of the displayed values and rounded to one decimal place. In hour and cost comparisons, it shows each series' share of the combined total of the series. If the planned value is 10 hours and the actual value is 5 hours, the chart proportions are 66.7% and 33.3%. The completion rate would be 5 / 10 = 50%; the chart's 33.3% does not represent that rate.
Check the result using a small, known dataset: the correct source, timestamp, period, statuses, comparison points and comparison to the total amount setting. Also check for overlapping groups and the filter exceptions for the calculation mode in question. Remaining 100% alone does not indicate that data exists: it can also be generated when no comparison points are selected. When the total amount is zero, the calculation has no separate safe handling of zero, so an empty comparison to the total amount should not be interpreted as a reliable percentage result. If needed, see Troubleshooting an empty report.
Save the filters or create a parallel comparison
Save an existing report's settings using Save Settings in its title bar. This action becomes visible to an administrator when the settings panel is open. A new report or copy must first be saved using the page's Save the page button or the save action in the Control report page menu. Save the page saves the settings, positions and sizes of all reports on the page; saving an individual report does not save the layout of the entire page.
If you need a parallel comparison, open the three-dot menu in the original report's title bar and select Create a copy. The copy retains the original report's selections. Change only the selection you want to compare, so that, for example, the period does not also change unnoticed. You can change the name using Edit report information in the copy's same menu. Finally, save the copy using Save the page.
Saving preserves the report's settings; it does not freeze the results or change tasks, Spots or entries. Figures for a fixed historical period can also change if the source data is corrected. Saved report settings belong to the shared report on the report page. When you return to the report, confirm that saving succeeded by checking the settings again, paying particular attention to changes in a relative period.