Students with a Reduced Day

We wanted a way to periodically check which students were on a reduced day.

This gets a little bit complicated because you have to compare the student's length of day to the student's school's length of day.

Here is how the final report is constructed

Here's a what the Results Objects and Query Filter looks like:

Variables!

We need to create a variable to figure out if the student's length of day matches the student's school's length of day.

Formula Explainer

[School Information].[Length of School Day] returns the value of the student's school day.

Trim([Schools].[Length of School Day]) returns the value of the school's day (of the student).

I had to add Trim() because for some reason there were a lot of extra spaces before these values. It was messing up the equals.

When building operators like this, 1 means TRUE and 0 means FALSE.

Build the custom variable

Right click on Variables and select Add New.

Name your variable. I used "Do LODs Match".

Build your formula.

=Trim([School Information].[Length of School Day])=Trim([Schools].[Length of School Day])

Input Control based on created variable

This formula returns a 1 if the values match and a 0 if they don't.

So now, build an Input Control to show only the 0s. This will show you all the student's whose length of day does NOT match the school's length of day.

The difference between useful to usable is in the design and formatting.

Refresh on Open

In Properties -> Document, set the report to Refresh on Open.

Add a footer with "="This report was generated on: " + LastExecutionDate()"

Manage Breaks

For this report, one school per page. Organized by School.

Add the school name to the School Section. This helps with sorting and distribution later.

Plan breaks and sorts to match grain size of distribution or remediation.

Page Setup

The default page size is A4 for some reason. Change it to Letter and Landscape.

Make sure the Scale to Page is set to automatic. This should ensure you fill up the useable space.

Also, most printers support a .4 margin. I use this to the left, right, and bottom to maximize print space and readability.