Bookmarking Reports - Are you using this feature?
In working with customers, I think one of the more under utilized features of E-Sourcing / CLM that can really add value and simplify users’ use of the system is bookmarked reports.
For those that don’t know about bookmarking reports in E-Sourcing / CLM, let me explain the feature. All E-Sourcing / CLM reports can be bookmarked. Check out this screen shot that shows the toolbar that is displayed with a report when it is executed; notice the Bookmark Report option:
Report toolbar with Bookmark option (click to enlarge)
When a report is bookmarked using the button above, the user provides a name that will be saved for their use only. The system will save the name entered by the user and the filter parameters used for that execution of the report and make it available via an area on the Analysis page:
My Bookmarks - Available from Analysis page (click to enlarge)
As you can see, I have already setup five bookmarked reports. For me, the value in this functionality is the ability of the system to save the filter parameters I entered and to enable very easy access to the report from the Analysis page. Lets say, for example, that there is report that has filters for Organization Unit and some dates. Lets also say that I need to run this report once a week for the current quarter and a specific organizational unit. The first time I run the report for the quarter, I would bookmark it and those settings would be saved. Now, each time I need to run the report, I just run it from the bookmarks and those filter parameters will be populated with the report and it will execute using them.
Bookmarked reports can also be deleted. In my previous example, I would probably do that at the beginning of each quarter when I setup a new bookmark for that quarter. In the screen shot above, there is an edit button in the Bookmark heading - using that button provides me with a screen that I can use to delete unused bookmarks.
So, what do you think? Would using this feature help out your users? I suggest giving it a try.
A few weeks back, I posted about cleaning up the workbench page (Could the E-Sourcing / CLM Workbench be more useful?). One of the ideas I put in that post was to extend the capabilities of bookmarks by making a workbench page channel with access to bookmarks. This would really further extend the value of the bookmarked reports so that users have one-click access to their important reports right from their workbench.
That’s it for this week’s post. I hope this was helpful and that you consider using report bookmarking in your implementation.