Explore reports are ready-made reports built to answer common questions. Choose the report you need, adjust the filters or display choices, and let MindSalt handle the report setup.
When to use Explore #
Explore is useful when you want an answer without building the report from scratch.
Depending on the features enabled for your account, Explore reports can help with questions such as:
- How many hours did employees record each day?
- Which timesheets or days are incomplete?
- Which expenses are missing receipts?
- How are project budgets doing?
- Which records match a specific review or cleanup need?
Each Explore report has its own fields and options, so you only see the controls that make sense for that report.
Run an Explore report #
- Open Reports.
- Select Explore.
- Choose a report.
- Select the date range or report period when the report uses one.
- Add or change any filters.
- Choose columns, groups, or display options when available.
- Select Apply.
After the report is current, Apply changes to Refresh.
Filters, columns, groups, and display choices #
Explore reports use the same general Report Builder controls, but the available choices depend on the report.
Some reports let you filter the results, add or remove columns, group the rows, or change display choices. Other Explore reports are intentionally more focused and have fewer choices.
Budget Performance #
Budget Performance compares each configured project or task budget with the activity that has used that budget.
Use it when you want to see the budget amount, how much has been used, how much remains, budget progress, and whether the budget is on track, at budget, or over budget.
What each budget tracks #
The report follows the budget setup on the project.
Hours compares the budget with tracked project or task hours.
Costs compares the budget with labor cost from tracked time. Expense items are not added to a Cost budget.
Billing compares the budget with billable time amounts. A project-level Billing budget can also include billable expenses when that choice is enabled on the project.
Expenses compares the budget with project expense item amounts.
Project and task budgets #
A project-level budget produces a project budget row.
When a project is budgeted by task, Budget Performance shows the budgeted tasks separately.
A task with no budget amount is not treated as a zero-dollar or zero-hour budget. It simply does not participate in the task budget report.
A task with an entered budget of 0 is a configured zero budget and does participate.
Lifetime and repeating budgets #
A budget can cover the full life of the project or reset on a schedule.
Available choices include:
- Lifetime;
- Monthly;
- Quarterly;
- Yearly.
A Lifetime budget keeps one budget for the full project history.
A Monthly budget starts a fresh budget each month.
A Quarterly budget starts a fresh budget each quarter. The project setup can choose the quarter cycle.
A Yearly budget starts a fresh budget each year. The project setup can choose the month when the budget year begins.
The full budget amount applies to each reset period. It is not reduced just because the report shows only part of a period.
Budget periods from #
Budget periods from chooses the first budget period shown in the report.
For a repeating budget, this does not always mean activity starts on that exact day.
Example:
- Budget periods from: September 15
- Activity through: September 30
- Budget reset: Monthly
The report includes the September budget period, so September activity from the start of the month can count toward that budget.
Activity through #
Activity through is the last activity date included in the budget usage.
Use it when you want to answer a question such as, “Where did these budgets stand as of September 30?”
Project start and end date filters #
Project Start Date and Project End Date filters help choose which projects appear in the report.
They do not change the budget period or cut off the activity used by the budget.
Common columns #
Budget Performance can include fields such as:
Project – The project connected to the budget.
Task – The task when the project uses task budgets.
Budget Period – Lifetime, Monthly, Quarterly, or Yearly period represented by the row.
Metric – Hours, Costs, Billing, or Expenses.
Dates included – The activity dates used for that row.
Budget – The configured budget amount.
Used – The amount of qualifying activity that has used the budget.
Remaining – Budget minus Used.
Progress – How much of the budget has been used.
Budget Status – A quick description such as No activity, In progress, At budget, or Over budget.
Billable expenses and Billing budgets #
A project-level Billing budget can be set to include billable expenses.
When that option is on, Budget Performance adds qualifying billable expense amounts to the billable time amount.
Task-level Billing budgets use billable time only.
Use Budget Performance with the Project Overview #
Budget Performance is useful when you want to compare many projects, periods, or task budgets in one report.
The Project Overview is better when you are looking at one project and want a quick view of its current budget, progress, charts, and task details.
Large Explore reports #
Some Explore reports can return many rows.
If the browser preview reaches its row limit, MindSalt shows a message so you know the preview is not the complete result.
PDF also has a limit because it must create the whole report.
Use CSV when you need the complete row set from a large report.
Save an Explore report #
Save an Explore report when you want to keep the same report, filters, columns, groups, display choices, or date setup.
If a saved employee, client, project, task, expense type, or another selected record is no longer available, MindSalt keeps the selection in the saved filter and shows {Unavailable} in place of its name.
This keeps a saved filter from silently changing into a broader report.