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Use a report prompt to customize a report.

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Administrator

01-03-2022

Report prompts are open filters that can be customized and applied differently each time you run a report.


Prompts give flexibility to reports, allowing you to tweak certain criteria without having to create a whole new report. Many report writers use prompts that relate to completion dates, status, and users. For example, you have a report that looks at all of the active projects in the Marketing portfolio with planned completion dates of this quarter. This is a report you use frequently. You’re showing this report in a meeting, and one of the executives wants to know how many of these projects are running late. The director of the project manager wants to know how many of the projects belong to members of his team. You’re in the middle of a meeting! You can’t write brand new reports right now! That’s when built-in prompts come in, as they allow you to run the same report with just a few added criteria. Report prompts act on top of the filters that are already built into the report.

You can build in the prompts when you’re initially creating the report. Or you can add them to an existing report.


Let's walk through how this works:




  1. From the Reporting area and the Reports tab, either create a new report or edit an existing report. Let’s edit a report we’ve already written, called My Project Report.
  2. Take a look at how it’s set up by running the report (click the report name). Those results look good. To see how the report was set up and to add prompts, click Report Actions and select Edit.
  3. Start by looking at the Filters tab. What filters were already used in this report? It looks like you’re looking for projects that you’re the owner of and that have a status that indicates they’re a current, or live, project. A useful report, but you’re going to get a lot of results.
  4. Take a moment and think … How else might I need to filter this report? Do I want to see the late projects? Do I want to see projects that are planned to be complete this quarter? All of these are filters you could build in as report prompts.
  5. In the report building window, click Report Settings in the top-right corner. Then click Report Prompts
  6. Now you can click Add a Prompt, and select the additional fields you want to filter by.
  7. For this report, let’s add two prompts — one to show the project progress status and another prompt to show projects that have a specific planned completion date.
  8. It’s important to note that these prompts will show every time the report is run. To help streamline things when running a report, Workfront recommends that you limit the number of prompts you add to a report.
  9. If you have added, or plan to add, this report to a dashboard, the checkbox lets you indicate if the prompts should display in the dashboard.
  10. Once everything is set, click Done and then Save + Close.
  11. The report runs again, displaying the prompts you just added. From the planned completion date filter, choose “this quarter.”
  12. This time when you look at the report, you see fewer results. The report’s built-in filters have been applied — assigned to you and in a live status — plus the prompt of planned completion date this quarter.

If you can’t remember which prompt you selected, click the Show Prompts link at the top of the window and the information displays under the report name.

If you want to change the prompt, click on the Prompts tab and reset the prompts as desired and run the report again. If you don’t want to use the prompts, just leave them set to “any” and click Run Report. This runs the report with only the built-in filters.

Prompts add flexibility to reports by allowing you to add additional filters as you’re running a report. Oftentimes, using prompts means you can cut back on the total number of reports you need to write and maintain. Prompts also give you the flexibility to slightly alter the report results, making sure you are seeing the data you need.

Here’s a quick rundown of the steps to create a prompt:

  1. Click Reporting in the global navigation bar.
  2. Select the Reports tab > run an existing report > click Report Actions > and select Edit.
  3. Click on Report Settings > and then Report Prompts.
  4. Click Add a Prompt > add the files you want.
  5. Click “Done” > then “Save + Close.”
  6. Report page will auto-refresh and show the prompts.
  7. Enter qualifiers and values and see the results.
  8. To see what prompts have been used, click Show Prompts link or the Prompts tab.


Please post questions, feedback or your results of implementing these tips. If you have a related tip you’ve learned, feel free to comment and share below!