About
This article and video tutorial (below) cover running multi-prompt reports and re-prompting reports in BLUEcloud Analytics (BCA). You can bookmark the
BCA login page for easy access later. If you don't know your BCA login, please
open a help desk ticket.
Multi-Prompt Reports
In the tutorial on navigating reports, we ran a report simply by clicking on it. In the tutorial on single-prompt reports and page-by axis, we ran a report after selecting a library or libraries. Multi-prompt reports will have you go a step further and ask you to set additional parameters to display the data you want.
Let’s practice running a multi-prompt report.
From the BCA home screen, click Shared Reports. Next, click the Circulation Statistics folder. You’ll notice that each of the reports, like their report folders, has a description.
Folder and report descriptions are the key to finding the report you want.
Find the report titled Circulation Stats - Daily. According to the description, this report lists daily transactions, such as checkouts, renewals and use, by home location. You’ll be prompted to select a range of dates and a station library. The report includes totals by date and date range for each home location and overall. Note that the results will exclude system users, such as REPAIR, MISSING, etc. Click the report.
Double-click your library code or highlight it and move it to the Selected box using the single-arrow button. If your library has branches, or you want to see data for a group of libraries, include those codes in the Selected box as well.
To remove a library from the Selected list, double-click it or highlight it and use the single-arrow button to move it back to the Available list.
To move all libraries to the Selected list or back, use the double-arrow buttons.
Use the calendar icons to enter the beginning and ending dates of the date range you want to view daily transactions for.
If you select the same date for both the beginning and ending dates, for example, November 1st, the report will display results for that day only. If you select the day after your beginning date as your ending date, the report will generate results for those two days, November 1st and 2nd, and so on.
Remember that BCA doesn’t run real-time reports – it uses a nightly snapshot of the system, so you can’t retrieve results on actions completed today.
Notice in the left-hand menu that a green flag appears after each successfully completed prompt. Checking there lets you know if any prompts have been left blank.
If you manually enter a date that doesn’t exist, such as November 31, the prompt will be marked with a red flag and an error message. Enter an existing date to remove the error and change the red flag to green.
Once you’ve made your selections, click Run Report.
Daily totals appear on the far right while home location totals for the date range you specified appear at the bottom.
Let’s run another multi-prompt report.
Return to the Shared Reports folder, then click the Collection Maintenance folder.
Find the report titled Weeding List by Last Checkout and/or Pub Date. According to the description, this weeding list prompts for library and last checkout date, as well as created date, to eliminate items recently added. You’ll have the option to include items by publication date and call number. Note that home location can be selected on the page-by axis. Click the report.
You’ll notice from the left-hand menu that this report has 6 prompts. Each prompt includes a description to help you decide what parameters you want to set for the report. As the report title and description attest, this report allows you to create a weeding list by last checkout date, publication date or both. Each additional prompt after the library is optional.
Choose your library, then move on to the next prompt, Item Created Date. Note that this prompt instructs you to select a date that will exclude items recently added to the collection. For example, you can exclude items added from 2017 on by selecting January 1, 2017. These items will be excluded regardless of whether they have been checked out or marked as used.
You can adjust the year manually by clicking inside the year field, as opposed to using the arrows to navigate back month by month.
Setting beginning and ending call numbers helps when weeding by sections.
In the video tutorial below, Catalog Pub Year is set to 10 years ago. This will list books that are 10 or more years old, so you can assess them for damage and relevance. Keep in mind, as the description states, that if you set both this field and the last checkout field, items with older publication dates but recent checkouts will still appear on this list for your review.
In the tutorial, Item Last Checkout Date is set to two years ago. This date is the last time an item was checked out, renewed, marked as used, or checked out to a system user, like DISPLAY or MISSING. It doesn’t include inventory scans. Again, if you set both this field and the pub year field, items with older publication dates but recent checkouts will still appear on this list for your review.
Click Run Report.
In the top left corner of the report window, you’ll see the option to view results using the page-by axis of Item Collection. If you don't see the page-by option, select Page-by Axis from the Tools drop-down.
You can use the drop-down to view data one collection at a time. Item Collection in BCA is the equivalent of Home Location in WorkFlows.
These reports are built for all MSC libraries, but when you select your library from the prompt, the drop-down contains only those home locations your library uses. This is one way to see if any items are cataloged incorrectly in your library.
Re-Prompting Reports
There are two ways to adjust report parameters without re-entering all the prompts.
One option is the back-arrow button (A). If you looked at a few pages or item collections, you will have to click the arrow several times.
The other option is to select the re-prompt icon (B) under the Data tab, or choose Re-prompt from the Data drop-down (C).
Video Tutorial