Configurable reports: Difference between revisions

Latest revision as of 14:56, 3 November 2022

Installation

Download the Configurable Reports installation file and unzip it to the \blocks directory in your Moodle folder.
Be sure that the final name of the directory is: configurable_reports, the full path in your Moodle installation will be blocks/configurable_reports
Login to Moodle as Administrator and click Notifications under Site Administration.

For more information see Installing contributed modules or plugins

Overview

This block is a Moodle custom reports builder. It its also connected to a public repository of sample reports (only plugin version 2.3 and above)

It is designed in a modular way to allow developers to create new plugins in less than an hour.

Who can create custom reports?

Anyone with block, managereports or manageownreports permissions at SITE level or COURSE level.

What type of reports can I create?

- Courses reports, with information regarding courses.

- Categories reports, with information regarding categories. A courses report can be embedded in this type of report.

- Users reports, with information regarding users and their activity in a course.

- Timeline reports, this is a special type of report that displays a timeline. A course or user report can be embedded in this timeline showing data depending on the start and end time of the current row.

- Custom SQL Reports, custom SQL queries. This block can use the same SQL queries as Tim Hunt's Custom SQL queries plugin.

Note for developers: You can create your own type of reports.

Who can view the reports?

When you create a report you can select which users can view it.

The reports are displayed in a block in the course or site frontpage.

Creating a report

This is a very simple process.

If you are going to create a report for a course, you have to add the block in the course and click in the "Manage reports" link.

On the other hand, for site reports, add the block in the frontpage and click in the "Manage reports" link.

You must enter a name, an optional description, and you have to choose the type of report, pagination and exports formats.

Depending on the report chosen, there will be more or less tabs. These are the tabs for the courses and users report:

Columns: Here you can choose the different columns of your report depending on the type of report. (Course Name, User firstname, etc..)

Conditions: Here you can define the conditions (i.e., only courses from this category, only users from Spain, etc.)

Ordering: Here you can choose how to order the report using fields and directions.

Filters: Here you can choose which filters will be displayed.

Template: You can modify the report's layout by creating a template.

Permissions: Here you can choose who can view a report.

Calculations: Here you can add calculations for columns, i.e.: average of number of users enrolled in courses

Plots: Here you can add graphs to your report based on the report columns and values.

View report: Self explanatory

Tutorial

Creating a users' report

Requirements: Users from Spain, but not from Madrid, in this course. This report can be viewed only by users from Spain. A filter based on the user's city must be displayed. A pie plot showing the users' cities is required. A calculation table showing the total forum post views is required. The report must be ordered by users' lastname.

Let's see how easy it is!

First of all, install the block.

Go to the course where the report will be created.

Add an instance of the Custom Reports block.

Click on "Manage reports"

Click on "Add report"

Enter a name, a description and choose "Users report" as Type of Report

The report will be saved and you will be redirected to the first Tab named "Columns".

Adding Columns

Here you can define the report table properties, width, align, cell padding, cell spacing, etc.

Add a Column called "User profile field"

Choose the field "firstname" and enter a name for the column in the text field. You can leave the rest of elements blank.

Repeat the process above for the lastname and city fields.

Add a Column called "User module actions".

Choose a module from the list, in this example, a forum.

Adding Conditions

Click on the Conditions Tab.

Add a Condition named "User field Condition".

Choose the column "Country", the Operator "=", and enter the value "ES" (this is the international code for Spain as Moodle stores it).

Add a Condition named "User field Condition".

Choose the column "city", the Operator "<>", and enter the value "Madrid".

Add a Condition named "Users in current report course".

These are the main conditions of the reports. Note that at the bottom there is a text box called condition, with this text:

"c2 and c1 and c3"

Here you can define a logic condition, in this case, we don't need to edit this condition but you can create complex expressions like:

(c1 and c2) or (c4 and c3)

Adding Ordering

Click on the Ordering Tab.

Add an ordering named "User field ordering".

Choose the column "Lastname" and the ordering "ASC" (Ascending).

Adding Filters

Click on the Filters Tab.

Add a filter named "User field filter".

Choose city.

Adding Permissions

Click on the Permissions Tab.

Choose "User field Value".

Choose the column "Country", and enter the value "ES".

Here you can add more permissions and a logic condition to be achieved.

Adding Calculations

Click on the Calculations tab.

Choose Sum.

Choose the column "User module actions".

Adding Plots

Click on the Plots tab.

Choose "Pie".

Choose the column "City" as Name and Value.

Finally, add a few users in Moodle with the country Spain, and different cities, Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, etc. and test the report.

You can download the report in different formats (ods and xls), remember to check these options in the report page.

See screenshot

Creating a SQL Report

You can find a lot of SQL Reports here: ad-hoc contributed reports

Since this block supports Tim Hunt's CustomSQL Queries Reports, you can use any query.

Remember to add a "Time filter" if you are going to use reports with time tokens.

First of all, install the block.

Go to the course where the report will be created.

Add an instance of the Custom Reports block.

Click on "Manage reports".

Click on "Add report

Enter a name, description, choose "SQL" as Type of Report

The report will be saved and you redirect to the first Tab named "Custom SQL"

Add this query (Courses activity):

SELECT COUNT(l.id) hits, l.course courseId, c.fullname coursename FROM prefix_log l INNER JOIN prefix_course c ON l.course = c.id GROUP BY courseId ORDER BY hits DESC

Adding a calculation

Go to Calculations Tab
Add a Sum calculation, choose the hits column

Adding a Plot

Go to Plot
Add a Pie graph, choosing coursename as Name and hits as value

So, here you have a report with a Graph and calculations based on a SQL Query.

Note: Bar charts are currently not displaying on systems using PHP 7: https://github.com/jleyva/moodle-block_configurablereports/issues/101

Filters

Filters add a control to the report that allows the user to select a subset of data when the report runs. Filters require two steps:

Select the filter you want to use on the "Filters" tab
Add SQL code to make the filter affect the output.

These are the filters that can be used to constrain your report:

%%FILTER_CATEGORIES: %%FILTER_COURSEMODULEID: %%FILTER_COURSEMODULEFIELDS: %%FILTER_COURSEMODULE: %%FILTER_COURSES: %%FILTER_COURSEENROLLEDSTUDENTS: %%FILTER_USERS: %%FILTER_ROLE: %%FILTER_SEARCHTEXT: %%FILTER_SEMESTER: %%FILTER_STARTTIME: %%FILTER_ENDTIME: %%FILTER_SUBCATEGORIES: %%FILTER_COURSEUSER: %%FILTER_SYSTEMUSER: %%FILTER_YEARHEBREW: %%FILTER_YEARNUMERIC:

Using Filters

When using a filter you need at least one static WHERE condition, followed by one or more filters. For example

WHERE 1 %%FILTER_COURSES:c.id%%

You can technically add multiple filters, but once a user applies one filter to a report all filters for report are applied. So it can be a little tricky to have multiple filters on the same report. For example, if you add a course and date filter to a report, then if you just want to filter by course you have to make sure your date filters are set to date range that covers all courses.

Many of the filters are hard coded to be drop down menus which are sorted by database id number instead of alphabetically. This can be problematic if you have a large number of users, courses, or categories. However, you can use one search text filter per report, which can be used to work around the issue in some cases.

Many filters require a logical operator to specify how the filter works. For example %%FILTER_STARTTIME:l.TIME:>%% %%FILTER_ENDTIME:l.TIME:<%%

You can add a Course filter; it's very easy.

Go to filters, choose Courses
Edit the Custom SQL query:

SELECT COUNT(l.id) hits, l.course courseId, c.fullname coursename FROM prefix_log l INNER JOIN prefix_course c ON l.course = c.id %%FILTER_COURSES:l.course%% GROUP BY courseId ORDER BY hits DESC

Note that we are adding a token called: %%FILTER_COURSES:l.courseid%%

Go to View report, and you will see a Courses Filter, choose a Course and click on Add, here you have a report filtered.

You can also add a Starttime and endtime filter

Go to filters, choose Start / End date filter
Go to Custom SQL tab, this is the new query:

SELECT COUNT(l.id) hits, l.course courseId, c.fullname coursename FROM prefix_log l INNER JOIN prefix_course c ON l.course = c.id %%FILTER_COURSES:l.course%% %%FILTER_STARTTIME:l.time:>%% %%FILTER_ENDTIME:l.time:<%% GROUP BY courseId ORDER BY hits DESC

If you want to filter text (for example, lastname)

Go to filters, choose Search Text filter
Go to Custom SQL tab and type your query. Here is an example for querying the user table:

SELECT u.firstname, u.lastname FROM prefix_user u WHERE 1=1 %%FILTER_SEARCHTEXT:u.lastname:~%% ORDER BY u.lastname

Replace WHERE 1=1 with your WHERE criteria. If you do not have any where criteria and do not specify WHERE 1=1, you will receive a SQL error.

One more example (for filtering a group of courses by category)

SELECT COUNT(l.id) hits, c.fullname as Course,c.id as CourseID ,(SELECT Count( ra.userid ) AS Users FROM prefix_role_assignments AS ra JOIN prefix_context AS ctx ON ra.contextid = ctx.id WHERE ra.roleid = 5 AND ctx.instanceid = c.id) AS Students FROM prefix_log l INNER JOIN prefix_course c ON l.course = c.id %%FILTER_CATEGORIES:c.category%% GROUP BY l.course ORDER BY hits DESC

Go to View report, now you can filter by time also.

Filter Issue

CONTRIB-4414 describes an issue where if you use the date filtering function and specify the end date as, for example: 6/11/13, Configurable Reports only searches for end dates up until 6/11/13 12:00 AM. The afternoon data for 6/11/13 is not included, so data for 6/11/13 2:30 PM will be excluded.

The workaround to include the entire end date for the full 24 hour period is to change:

%%FILTER_ENDTIME:table.field:<%% to: %%FILTER_ENDTIME:table.field-86399:<%%

SQL variables

If you place one of these strings in your SQL queries, it will be replaced by the appropriate value (current course id, current user id, Moodle www root (url), etc.)

%%CATEGORYID%% %%COURSEID%% %%CURRENTUSER%% %%DEBUG%% %%FILTER_VAR%% %%STARTTIME%%','%%ENDTIME%% %%USERID%% %%WWWROOT%%

For an example of how to use the %%FILTER_VAR%% to pass a variable into a report as a parameter in the report URL, see this query as an example.]

See screenshot

Creating a timeline report

This report assumes that you have created at least one user or course report

Timeline reports are a special type of reports. A timeline report displays a timeline in which a course report or user report can be embedded.

In this example we are going to create a report showing the user logins to the site during the last month (day per day).

Create a User report (see tutorial above) with three columns (firstname, lastname and user statistics)

Select the statistic (User logins)

Create a Timeline report, in the Timeline tab you can select the dates or days of the report (in this case, the last 30 days) and the interval of time for every row.

Add three "Other report column" columns, selecting all the previous user report columns.

And that's all, you can create a new type of plot (line graph). This graph is suitable for data depending on time.

Advanced options

Export and import of reports

Embedded reports exporting is not working because the reports include references to another reports. A workaround is edit the imported report for changing the references in the "Other report field" column.

Reports that uses the user module outline column can't be exported either