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Report Desk: Running Reports

Release Date: 4/28/23

Version 8.6 

Report Desk provides a powerful developing environment for Netcellent to deliver modern reports with rich elements of proportional spacing fonts, graphics, shading and line drawing. It allows us to output reports to PDF, CSV and XLSX formats.  In addition, Report Desk uses the PSQL relational engine to access the Elliott database. 

When launching a report in Elliott that has a Report Desk User Defined Report (UDR) available, the user will be presented with an Elliott Report Selection Screen.


This screen will show the Legacy and the UDR report options that are available for the report. The Legacy report is the original version of the Elliott report. The UDR reports are the new Report Desk reports. Each UDR report will have a unique ID with the following format: NAME.X.1.2.3 where:

  • NAME is the name of your UDR report, in this case ARTRMLST.
  • X can have the value of B (Base) or E (Enhancement). Base means this report was originally created by Netcellent, and Enhancement means this report was created by your developer.
  • 1 - the first numeric digit represents the template ID.  A template usually represents a unique way of joining the tables.  As an end user, you can't create your own template because the joining must be done by Netcellent or your developer to ensure best database performance.
  • 2 - the second numeric digit represents the different types of report options derived from the same template. This can be a different sorting sequence, different input selection options, or different columns to be included on the report.
  • 3 - the third digit is the variance of each type of report.  The value zero means this is the original report developed by Netcellent or your developers. Other values (greater than zero) are revisions of the report made by you. You can, for example, change to different sorting, selection and columns options and save your own version of the report.    Netcellent or your developer may change the reports that end with zero in the future, but your derived reports that do not end with the zero will never be overridden. 
If the report developer included an abstract of the report, it will show up in the Abstract column.  If it is truncated (having trailing ... ), hovering the mouse over the cell will show the entire abstract.

If the report developer has created a more complex document describing the report, "Yes" will appear in the More column, and you can right-click to go to the document.

Input Parameter Screen

To run the UDR report, highlight the report and double-click or click on the OK button. This will launch the report parameter screen.


By default, this screen will be populated with the values that the report designer specified, if any.  If, however, you saved a template as the default (see below), it will be populated with those values.

The report parameter screen options include:

Report selection criteria: Here is where you enter parameters that define which records you will get in the report.  Notice the hint Blank will be treated as "All", near the bottom.  That area provides a hint for the field where the cursor is.  Hovering the mouse over any field will produce a hint for that field.  Dates can be entered in various ways, as documented here.

Description: The is an optional description of the report. If you choose to enter a value here, it serves several purposes:

  1. If you choose to print to disk, the description will be part of your report file name.  See sample screen below.
  2. If you choose to email the report, the description will be part of the attachment file name.
  3. If you choose to save your input default, it will become the default description of the template.

The following example  shows the description that will be shown in the Description column of the Spooled Reports application.

OK: Pressing the OK button will launch the ReportOuput screen.

Cancel: Pressing the Cancel button will return the user to the Elliott Report Selection Screen.

Reset: Pressing the Reset button will reset the input parameters to the default values. For example, if the user had entered a range of 1 to 99 for the Terms Code, these values would be erased and reset to the default values.

Save: Press the Save button to save the input values you end up using this time.  Optionally, you can make these values your defaults when the report first comes up.



  • Save Output Options with this template: If you select this, then the printing destination -- including printers, screen, disk and emails -- will be saved as part of the template. As a result, when you choose to use this template in the future, not only will the the input values be defaulted, but also the printing destination(s) will be defaulted to these values.
  • Make this template my default template: If you select this option, then the input value -- in this example, terms code from A - Z -- will be used as the default in the future when you run it. If you don't want this in the future, you can delete the saved template in the "Use" tab.
  • Make this template available to all users:  If you have authority to modify reports, this checkbox will be visible and checking it will create a template that will appear in the Use list for all users.

Use: Pressing the Use button will bring up a list of previously saved report parameters. 


  • The Template Description column shows the description when this template was saved.
  • The Created column shows the date when this template was created.
  • The By User column indicates who created the template -- any templates that are shared by all users will have a value of SUPERVISOR here.
  • The Default column indicates whether this template will be used for default values each time you start this report.  Note that there could be 2 templates marked Default Yes (one you created and one created by another authorized user.  In that case, the template you created will override the other default template template.
  • The All Users column indicates whether or not the listed template will be available to all users.
  • The Format column shows the output format, if saved, for this template to be either PDF, CSV or XLSX.
  • The Print, Screen, Disk and Email columns will show what, if any, output destinations are used when this template is selected.
  • The Use button will return the user to the report parameter screen and the saved values will be displayed. 
  • The Delete button will delete the selected template.  You will only be able to delete templates that you created, unless you are authorized to create shared templates.
  • The Cancel button will return the user to the report parameter screen without using a template.

ReportOutput Screen

The first time the ReportOutput screen is displayed for each report, the report will default to print to  Screen in PDF Format, using the Elliott report Viewer.


You may use this default or choose other output tabs. Multiple report destinations can be chosen.

Unless you have saved a default template that includes saving the output options, the values on this screen will default to the values from the last time you ran this report.

There are multiple formats available: PDF, CSV (comma separated values) and XLSX (Excel).


There are shortcut keystrokes you can use to quickly change the output format: Alt-P for PDF, Alt-C for CSV and Alt-X for XLSX.
  • The Print parameters option, if checked, will print the report selection criteria at the bottom of the report.
  • Keep timings on screen, if checked, will keep the status panel visible after a report is complete. It will also display the time it took to process the report.


Output Destination Tabs

Users can choose between four different output destinations:

Printer – Send printed output to a Windows printer.


The report will be sent to the selected printer(s). If you wish to print the report from a different tray on the printer or to another printer that is not listed, then you can click the Add Configuration button to add another printer with the desired properties.  


From this screen, choose the printer from the list provided. 

  • Choose the Use Default Settings button to use the printer's default settings.
  • Press the Use Custom Settings... button to set up custom settings for the printer.
  • Press the Cancel button to exit without adding another printer.

Screen – Display printed output to the screen.


You can choose to view the output with the Elliott Report Viewer or use the Windows default program. The Elliott Report Viewer option is only available if the report format is PDF.  If you choose the output format as either CSV or XLSX, we assume you have Excel, or another Excel-aware application,  installed on your machine to view the exported CSV or XLSX file on the screen.

Disk – Spool printed output to disk.


You can choose to save the report to the Spooled Report folder. 

The "Save to specific file"  option can be very useful when exporting to CSV or XLSX.  You must specify the file name extension yourself to match the file format you are exporting.  You can, for example, create an automatic processing by using the saved CSV or XLSX files to feed another process, like Bartender to print bar code labels, or EDI to send necessary data to your trading partners.  In that case, you should uncheck the "Print parameters" option so the export of your data will not contain any extra records (parameters) in the file.

E-mail – Send the output directly to an e-mail address.


  • Clear recipients after sending: If checked, this option will clear the To:, CC, and BCC: email addresses after the email is sent.
  • Interactive E-mail:  This allows you to modify the e-mail after it is prepared but before it is sent.
  • High Priority: Select this option to raise the priority of the e-mail.
  • Clear Content: This will clear the text in the body of the email.
  • Clear All: This will clear all fields.
  • Setup: This will allow you to insert a signature line into the email.
Finally, press Go to start the reporting process.

CLS, EMK, JEG


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