About filter screens

Once you choose a report from the 'Reports' menu or an update from the 'Updates' menu, you must fill in a filter screen. That is, you must answer questions on the screen about your report or update. Your answers give QuickFill additional information about the specific report you want to run.

Report description

This field appears at the top of each filter screen. Whatever you enter here will appear on the third line of your report's "header." Enter in this field any special description you want to give your report. The report description also appears on the list of scheduled reports that is displayed when looking at the contents of a job list. (Click here for more details on job lists.) You can use this description to distinguish between several runs of the same report that have different filter criteria.

Update description

This field appears at the top of the Make trial subscriptions update, Cancel trial subscriptions update, Make controlled subscriptions update, and Cancel controlled subscriptions update. Whatever you enter here will appear on the third line of the report (in the report "header") created by your update. Enter in this field any special description you want to give your update report. The report description also appears on the list of scheduled updates that is displayed when looking at the contents of a job list. (Click here for more details on job lists.) You can use this description to distinguish between several runs of the same update that have different filter criteria.

Company name

The company name is also part of your report's header. QuickFill prints the name you type in this field at the top of each page of your report. Note that you need to enter your company name only once when you create your first report. After that first time, QuickFill remembers the name, and it automatically appears each time you call up a filter screen. Reenter this information only if you decide to use a different name.

Nonzero price, Zero price

If you check the Nonzero price checkbox, your report will include orders with a nonzero price. If you check the Zero price checkbox, your report will include orders with a zero price. (To select these boxes, click once in them so that a check mark appears in each box) The order that QuickFill examines to determine whether or not the price is zero depends on which report you are running:

Qual paid, Nonqual paid, Qual nonpaid, Nonqual nonpaid (audit system)

If you select one or more of these check boxes, your report will only include orders whose audit classification matches the selections made. If your report includes publications that are not audited (and thus do not have audit classification data), the report will select orders based on the price field. If you select either or both of the paid check boxes (Qual paid or Nonqual paid), then, for nonaudited publications, your report will include orders with a nonzero price. If you select either or both of the nonpaid check boxes (Qual nonpaid or Nonqual nonpaid) then your report will include orders with a zero price.

Date range fields

Any time a report filter contains date range fields, you can either right click once or press the F2 key to select from a list of date ranges. For example, to produce a report that shows the number of new orders entered during the week, select "Current week" in the date range field on the filter for the 'Order history' report. When you do, QuickFill automatically enters a date range that covers Sunday through Saturday of the current week in the fields to the right of the relative date ("Current week"). To enter your own date range, select 'Custom dates' from the list and then type the date range you would like to use in the fields to the right.

The ability to select relative date ranges is most useful when you save report filters to job lists. This allows you to run the job lists without having to change the date range. For example, if you run the same set of reports at the end of each week, simply create a "Week's end" job list and schedule the reports you want to run at the end of the week using a date range of "Current week." Every time you run the "Week's end" job list QuickFill will automatically produce reports with information for Sunday through Saturday of the current week.

Issue range fields

Whenever you use issue range fields (such as the 'Expire issue' fields on the 'Promotional labels' report) and do not fill in both fields, QuickFill will only include one issue based on the entry in the field you did fill in. For example, if you enter "___ to 40" or "40 to ___" QuickFill will only include issue 40. In addition, if you enter a zero in one of the fields, that field will be treated as if it were blank. So if you run a report using an issue range of "0 to 40," QuickFill will only include issue 40.

Status fields

A number of the filter screens allow you to include or exclude customers based upon the status of their subscription. In these instances, the status codes listed below may be used:

There are also three codes that may be used to represent a group of statuses. They are 'A*' for the statuses 'A', 'AX', and 'G'; 'C*' for 'CC', 'CX', 'CN', 'CP', and 'E'; and '*' for all statuses except 'SI' and 'ST'. To display these codes while on a report filter, go to the 'Status' field and press F2, or right click in the field. (Click here for a description of each of the statuses listed above.)

Example: If you wanted to generate promotional labels for anyone with a status of canceled or expired, you could run your 'Promotional labels' specifying 'C*' in the status field. It is much more efficient to enter this one code to select a number of different statuses ('CC', 'CN', 'CX', 'CP', and 'E') than it is to enter each of the codes separately.

Hints for filling in report filters

• To display the list of defined codes for a specific field (such as the publication field, channel field, tracking code field, etc.), simply press F2 or right click once on the field.

• You can leave all the fields blank. If you do, your report will include all orders or customers in all categories.
  
  Example: You choose 'New order analysis by list' and leave all fields blank. Your report will show (broken down by mailing list) all new orders for all publications on all tracking codes. And it won't matter which mail plan, channel, or marketing package the new orders came from.

• You can fill in one or more fields in a specific category or categories. Your report will include only orders or customers that match the fields you've selected.
  
  Example: You choose 'New order analysis by list'. You've used three marketing plans, but you want to see results from only two—Plan1 and Plan2. Enter Plan1 and Plan2 in the 'Marketing plan' fields, and your report will include new orders—broken down by list—from only those plans.

• You can check the 'Exclude' box. Your report will exclude orders or customers that match any of the fields you've selected. This method is an alternative to the one we just described.
  
  Example: You want the same result as described in the previous example. So you enter Plan3 in the 'Marketing plans' box and check the 'Exclude' box. Again, your report will include new orders—broken down by list—from Plan1 and Plan2 but not new orders from Plan3.

• You can use wild cards to select groups of codes. An asterisk at the end of the field matches any nonblank sequence of characters or spaces in the remainder of the field. Similarly, an asterisk at the beginning of the field matches any nonblank sequence of characters at the start of the field. A question mark matches any single character. The ability to use wild cards provides greater flexibility by making it easier to select groups of customers based on marketing plans, tracking codes, status codes, and many other codes when running reports.
  
  If you use a wild card value of * in any field on the report filter, without any other characters, QuickFill will select only those orders or customers for which that field is non-blank. Conversely, if you exclude records using a wild card value of * then only those records that have a blanks in that field will be selected.
  
  Example: You defined your mail plan codes in such a way that the first two characters are the year in which the plan was used. Your 2001 plans were coded as 01SPR and 01FALL, and your 2002 plans were coded as 02SPR and 02FALL. To obtain a report on only the plans from 2002 you could enter '02*'. To obtain a report on all of the spring promotional plans you could enter '*SPR'. To obtain a report on all of the spring promotional plans from 2000 to 2009 you could enter '0?SPR'.

• If you've filled in fields in more than one category, an order or customer will appear in the report only if it belongs to all the categories you've selected.
  
  Example: You choose 'New order analysis by list', and enter Plan1 in the 'Mail plan' category and List1 in the 'Lists' category. Your report will include only those new orders that you received by using both List1 and Plan1.

• If you EXCLUDE orders or customers in more than one category, QuickFill excludes an order or customer if it belongs to any of the categories.
  
  Example: You choose 'New order analysis by list', and exclude Plan2 in the 'Mail plan' category and List2 in the 'List' category. Your report will exclude all orders from Plan2 as well as orders from List2.

• If you've used both include and exclude categories, the exclusion overrides the inclusion.
  
  Example: You choose 'New order analysis by list'. You exclude List1 and include Pub1. If a new order happens to fall in both categories (for instance, Mr. Smith subscribes to Pub1 and you got his name from List1), QuickFill excludes that new order from your report.

Click here for information on Options for running reports.