Report Basics

A report is simply "a way of getting information out of Panacea".  A report is a document which can be viewed on your monitor, or can be printed onto paper.  Some reports provide a lot of detail, whereas others provide useful summaries which can be used for managing your practice.

Panacea's reports are accessed from the Reports menu.  In general you will be required to configure some options before the report in generated.  Once the report has been generated it will be displayed on the screen in the report viewer.

Some reports require a lot of processing and may take some time to generate.  In general you can carry on with other work as these reports will run in a background thread .

The report viewer has a toolbar at the top which looks like this:

Print layout / Interactive layout
When a report is first generated it will displayed on the screen in Interactive layout mode.  In this mode you can "interact" with the report, for example you can hide or show certain items (by clicking on  or ) to see more or less detail.  In Interactive layout mode the pages may not look precisely the way they will when they are printed.  In Print layout mode Panacea will show the pages exactly as they will appear when printed, but you will not be able to "interact" with the report.  Document maps (see below) are only available in Interactive layout mode.

The layout mode is changed by clicking on the button in the toolbar:
	Print layout
	Interactive layout

Document maps
Certain reports have a Document map, which is a treeview  representing an overview of the report.  You can click on any item in the treeview  and Panacea will take you to that item in the report.

Document maps are displayed or hidden by clicking on the button in the toolbar:
	Show Document  map
	Hide Document map

Page navigation The navigation buttons allow you to move between pages in the report, as follows:
	Move to the first page in the report			Move to the previous page in the report
	Move to the last page in the report			Move to the next page in the report

You can also go directly to the page of your choice by typing the page number into the page navigator (indicated by the red arrow).  After entering the page number press the Enter key on your keyboard.

Printing the report
	Click this button to print the report.  A dialog window will be displayed enabling you to select the printer you want to use, as well as set various printing preferences.

Page Setup
	Click this button to display the Page Setup Dialog.  This window allows you to set the Page Size (e.g. A4), Paper Source, Orientation and Margins.  In general it is not necessary to modify any of these settings.

Saving a report to a file

Click on this button to save the report to a file (also called "exporting" the report).  A menu will be displayed allowing you to select the format you would like to save the report in (Excel or PDF).  After you click on your desired format Panacea will display a Save As dialog allowing you to select a filename and location for the file.  After selecting the filename and location click Save to complete the operation. Saving a report to a file has many potential benefits.  For example, after saving a report to a file you could email it to someone as an attachment.  You could also store important reports somewhere safe for later retrieval.

Setting the Page size
	Click on this combobox  to select the display size of the report on your screen.  This is sometimes called the "zoom" level.  The default setting is Page Width, but Panacea will remember your setting if you change it. Note that this setting has no effect on the size of the report when it is printed.

Finding text in the report

This allows you to search for words contained in the report. For example you may want to search for a particular medical aid's name (see example on the left) or a particular patient's name.  Type the word you want to find in the box then click Find.  Panacea will search for the first occurrence of the word and highlight it in the report.  Click Next if you want to search for the next occurrence of the word.

Date Range / Period Range selector Many reports require you to specify a start and end date or start and end period .  For example, the Daily Invoice Totals  report will only include invoices that fall into the date range or period range specified on the report's Date Range / Period Range selector. Using this selector is very easy.  Start by clicking on the By date or By period tab to tell Panacea whether you want to work with a date range or a period range, then specify the range.
	If you click on the By date tab then you will need to specify the date range using the From DatePicker  and the To DatePicker .
	If you click on the By period tab then you will need to specify the period range using the From ComboBox  and the To ComboBox .