To create a new report:
The Parent Project property may have important implications regarding who will be able to view the report. It is possible to change the report name, description and parent project at any time by visiting the General tab on the Reports page.
The General properties of a report include its name, description and parent project. To edit general report properties, click the General tab on the report page. Type the name and description, and choose a parent project, then click the Save button.
The name and description both appear in the DatStat Extranet. Because the DatStat Extranet may include a large number of reports, it’s helpful to choose a descriptive name and to provide a description with enough detail to distinguish the report from others.
Choosing a parent project determines where a Data Manager user needs to go to find the report. For example,choosing System as the parent project, the report will appear under the Reports tab of the System project. Choosing Project X as the parent project, the report will appear under the Reports tab of Project X.
More importantly, the parent project determines who will be able to view the report in the DatStat Extranet. By default, DatStat Extranet users are allowed to view any reports inside of the projects to which they have access, and are not allowed to view reports inside of projects to which they do not have access.
Consider this situation for example: there are two projects, one called “HR Surveys,” and one called “Customer Surveys.” Everyone working in Human Resources has access only to the “HR Surveys” project, while everyone in marketing has access only to the “Customer Surveys” project.
A report is created on the results of an HR survey, and put into the “Customer Surveys” project. In the DatStat Extranet, no one working in Human Resources can see the report, but everyone working in marketing can.
This is clearly not what is desired! Be sure to select the right parent project for the report! In most cases, the report should be in the same project as the survey whose results it displays.
Also note it is possible to specifically grant or deny report access to individual users.
The data displayed in all of the charts and tables of the report come from an Illume query. Reports display the summary data returned by a query. Summary data include response counts and percentages, and may include statistics such as minimum, maximum, mean, and standard deviation. An existing query can be used as the report data source, or define a new query. Creating a query is often more convenient when there are simple data requirements (e.g. no complex filters are needed, or a large list of carefully selected variables).
Cloning a query is generally more convenient when the query already exists, or when building and testing a complex query.
To create the data source for a report:
To clone an existing query:
After step 3, Illume will display the query selected, complete with the list of selected variables, filters, time periods, etc.
It is possible to edit this query for the report, and the edits will not affect the original query. Conversely, any changes made to the query from which this was cloned will not affect this query.
Report styles enable a Report Creator to control the fonts, colors and borders on report elements.
To set the styles for a report:
Adjust font and border attributes by selecting values from the appropriate list. Adjust color attributes by clicking on the appropriate color icon and choosing a color from the palette that appears.
Click any color within the color palette to select that color, then click OK to apply it. It is also possible to manually enter a color in the text box at the top of the color palette. The color must be formatted as a web color, with a pound sign, followed by 6 hexadecimal digits (e.g. #FF09C3). This option may be useful for organizations whose publications must adhere to a defined stylesheet or color palette.
Illume Reports include the following types of elements:
Annotations may contain any custom text and images.
Charts include bar charts, pie charts, line charts and box and whisker charts to represent data in a variety of styles.
Tables display various types of summary data in textual format.
Chart/Table combinations display data in both visual and textual media.
To add a chart to a report, go to the Layout/Design tab of the Report page and follow these steps:
Set the display properties for the chart, described below.
To create several charts of the same type that have a consistent appearance, put one chart in the report, set its properties, and add several variables to it.
To create charts with distinct style attributes, create one chart for each variable.
Whenever a chart is selected in the Report Designer, the Chart Properties form appears on the right side of the page. (To select a chart, simply click on it. When selected a thick red border appears around it.)
For each chart in your report, the following properties can be set:
The best way to understand what each setting does is to change the setting and click the Preview button to see how the change affects the display.
To add a table to a report, follow these steps:
Whenever a table is selected in the Report Designer, the Table Properties form appears on the right side of the page. (To select a table, simply click on it. It is selected when a thick red border appears around it.)
For each table in the report, the following properties can be set:
To add an annotation to a report, follow these steps:
The annotation editor enables Report Designers to compose formatted HTML with few limits. It behaves much like a word processor, and includes the toolbar functions listed below. Most of these toolbar options apply to the selected or highlighted text. To select text, click and drag the mouse across the text to select.
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Enlarge editor – Clicking this enlarges the size of the editor |
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Reduce editor – Clicking this reduces the size of the editor |
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Bold text – This applies or removes boldface to highlighted text |
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Italicize text – This applies or removes italic style to highlighted text |
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Underline text – This applies or removes underlining to highlighted text |
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Create subscript – This causes highlighted text to display as a subscript |
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Create superscript – This causes highlighted text to display as a superscript |
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Align left – This aligns highlighted text to the left |
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Align center – This centers highlighted text |
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Align right – This aligns highlighted text to the right |
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Justify text – This justifies highlighted text |
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Numbered list – This inserts a numbered list |
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Bullet list – This inserts a bulletted list |
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Decrease indent – This decreases the indent of the highlighted text, or of the paragraph that contains the cursor |
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Increase indent – This increases the indent of the highlighted text, or of the paragraph that contains the cursor |
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Font color – This presents a color-picker, from which you can select a color for the highlighted text |
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Highlight color – This presents a color-picker, from which you can select a color for the area behind the highlighted text |
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Horizontal line – This inserts a horizontal rule |
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Insert hyperlink – This creates a hyperlink from the selected text or image |
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Insert table – This inserts a table |
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Insert image – This inserts an image |
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Source mode – This switches the editor into source mode, so you can edit the HTML source directly |
Mozilla Firefox will not allow pasting text copied from an external application into the HTML editor. This is due to a security feature in Firefox aimed at preventing executable scripts from being pasted into a page while the page is in edit mode.
The workaround to this issue is clicking the source-mode button and pasting HTML or text directly into the
HTML source. Click the source mode button again to switch back to the formatted HTML view.
To copy extensive sections of text with formatting, use Internet Explorer which does not restrict content being copied into the HTML editor.
By default, reports are visible to those Data Manager users who are allowed to build reports, and to all Extranet Viewers. (Extranet Viewers are those who can log into the DatStat Extranet.) To restrict who is able to see a report, it is possible to specifically define who can see the report and who cannot.
To grant access to a report, click the Access tab on the Report page, and select one of the following options:
It is possible to create a single report, or multiple reports. A single report may be run once upon creation, or it may be updated on a regular schedule. In either case, there is only one set of data at any given time for the report to display.
When creating multiple reports, on the other hand, the Illume updates the report data on a regularly scheduled basis, and it keeps a copy of as many of these data sets as specified, so that at any given time, Users may log into the DatStat Extranet and review the report for this week, or for last week, or for some other past period.
To create a single report:
This report will be run once – Generates a report on data that will not change.
(I.e. The survey is no longer live, and there will be no new submissions.)
This report will be automatically updated on the following schedule – If the survey is still collecting submissions and the data may change periodically.
To automatically update the report, the schedule may be defined according to when it will be updated.
Illume will update the report at the time of day specified in the Time field.
The following data options are available:
NOTE: Choosing the second option, This report will be automatically updated on the following schedule, the latest version of the report the one with the most recent data always overwrites any older version. Only the most up-to-date version will ever be available for review.
A “multiple” report is a report run automatically on a schedule with older versions preserved. A typical “multiple” report may run once a week, with several weeks’ worth available at any given time.
To create a multiple report:
In addition to the options described above under Creating a Single Report, the following options must be specified:
When unpublishing a “multiple” report, Illume deletes all of the copies of the report! Be careful with this!
The owner of a report, can refresh the report data at any time. Click the View Published button on the Report page, then click the Force Report Refresh link on the report page.
Extranet Viewers see published reports through the DatStat Extranet. Data Manager users see reports listed on the Reports tab of the Project page. Data Manager users can view reports, but can edit only those reports they created themselves.
Reports can be viewed in two ways:
When clicking View Published, a link will be at the top of the report called Force Data Refresh. Click this to update the report with the latest available survey data. When forcing a data refresh, the updated data appear on the DatStat Extranet as well.
The DatStat Extranet is a feature for Illume. The DatStat Extranet enables Survey Designers to publish reports to an internal or external website for non-Illume users. Reports may include charts and tables to display survey data, as well as custom HTML and images.
Survey Designers can schedule reports to be updated regularly, and can configure how many versions of a report remain available. For example, you can schedule a report to run every Friday and 10:00 a.m., and you can tell Illume to keep 12 weeks of reports available.
Users with the Administrator Role can create an unlimited number of Extranet users, and control which reports each user can access.
Extranet Users can gain access to the Extranet Reports by logging in at the DatStat Gateway login page. Only Extranet Users will be able to see or gain access to this area.
Each Tab in the Extranet is a Project. In each may be at least one report that is viewable by the logged in user.
If there are a number of Project and Sub-Projects it is also possible to see a more complete view by using the Projects tab on the Left of the screen. This provides a Project Tree to navigate through.
Steps to View a Report: