Software Tips^.

The Measurement Report Wizard

The Measurement Report Manager contains two sections. The first section displays measurement reports created with the Report Wizard. The second section displays measurement reports created with a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel. In some cases, a spreadsheet will give you a little more flexibility.

The Measurement Report Wizard is one of my favorite parts of Box Theory™ Software. I’ve always dreaded the time it takes to create and format a spreadsheet. With the Report Wizard, you can produce a fully formatted report in minutes.

I highly recommend that you read the “Software Help” under “Measurement” for a full explanation of what to measure, how to measure, and an explanation of the Wizard itself. Once you are acquainted with this feature, using it is a snap. However, there are a few things I would like to emphasize.

• On the first page of the Wizard, you can check a box to indicate if the current system measurement is a key number that you want to watch closely. KPIs are updated on the Home Page of Box Theory™ Software for easy monitoring.
• By answering a few questions, the wizard will create your report for you. As you answer questions, keep in mind that some of the words you choose will become column headers. To get more columns on a page you can use smaller words that mean the same thing, or abbreviations. For example, you can write “Number,” “No.”, or “#.” After the report is created, you can also select a column line and drag it to increase or decrease its width. The text in the column header will wrap to another line if necessary to fit in the available space.
• On the final page of the Wizard, you will see a summary of the information describing your report. You can go backward to make any corrections. Before creating the report, you can also see a preview of what the report will look like.
• When the “Percent” checkbox appears at the top of the final report, you can choose to have the values in the “Total” column expressed as a number or a percent. Check or uncheck this box to suit your preference.
• After creating the report you can quickly do your data entry from the Main Menu of the software. You can also view data for any time periods such as weekly, monthly, or quarterly. The selected report will include the date in the “Date” field. If the date is 11/22/2016, and you selected Monthly Report, you will see the entire report for November 2016. Change the date to see past information.
• You can only enter or edit data in the primary view you specified in the Wizard. All other views are read-only. Totals appear at the bottom of the report. If you change views, the totals will also change to reflect the new time period.
• Print a blank report form for hand-recording measurement data at the system location (data is later added to the software).
• Be careful about editing a report format that already has data in it. Changes that eliminate columns will cause a loss of information. In some situations, it may be better to create a new report.

Again, be sure to read the “Software Help” page to take full advantage of this powerful tool!

Remember, measurement leads to improvement!
Ron Carroll