# How reporting works in AerScheduler

> One Reports page holds 19 built-in reports, your own Overview dashboard, and the emails that go out on a schedule. Four ideas explain the rest: report, category, saved view, and date basis.

Source: https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/reports/how-reporting-works
Section: Reports and analytics. For: Owners, Admins, Dispatchers, Technicians.

Reporting lives on one page in the web console: `Reports` (web console). That page holds 19 built-in
reports, your own Overview dashboard, and the reports your school emails out on a schedule. Four ideas explain
everything else: report, category, saved view, and date basis.

## Everything reporting lives on one page

Open `Reports` (web console). A left rail lists everything that exists, and the pane beside it renders
whichever item you pick.

The rail is always in the same order. Overview and Scheduled reports sit at the top on their own, then the
category headings: Financial, Operations, Fleet, Maintenance shop (at an organization that runs a shop), People,
Compliance.

On a narrow screen the rail collapses into a "Choose a report" select at the top of the page. Nothing is missing,
it just moves.

![Reports, left rail](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/reports-rail-owner.png)

## The reports are fixed, saved views are yours

There is no "new report" button, and you do not need one. Each report declares what its rows are, which
columns exist, which filters it offers, and what it can be grouped by. You shape one of them, then save that shape
as a view.

So the answer to "we need a report of X" is almost always: pick the nearest report, filter it, group it, choose the
columns, save it. "Month-end revenue", "Lapsed students" and "Grounding squawks" are saved views, not separate
reports. See [Save a report as a view](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/reports/save-a-report-view).

Everything else in this area runs those same reports underneath: the dashboard tiles, the Needs attention
counts, the scheduled emails, and the CSV exports. That is why a tile and the report you click into always show the
same number.

## Category decides who sees what

Every report sits in one category, and the category is the whole permission model. Financial is owners and admins
only. Dispatchers get Operations, Fleet, People and Compliance. Technicians get Fleet and Maintenance shop.

Reports you cannot run are absent, not greyed out. A dispatcher opening Reports sees no Financial heading at all,
so there is nothing to click and no upgrade prompt to misread. Full detail is in
[Who can see which reports](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/reports/who-can-see-which-reports).

## Date basis is why two reports disagree

Under the date range picker on every report there is a small caption reading "by" and then a date. That caption
tells you which date your range applies to.

It is the most load-bearing line on the page. Revenue is windowed on the date an invoice was raised. Payments
received is windowed on the date it was paid. An invoice raised in June and paid in August is June's revenue and
August's cash, so the two reports will not agree over the same window, and both are right.

> **Careful:** Before you reconcile one AerScheduler number against another, read both captions. Most "the numbers do not match"
> questions end there. See [Date ranges, date basis, and your school's time zone](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/reports/date-ranges-and-time-zones).

## The dashboard is yours, not the school's

The board of tiles belongs to you alone. Everyone at the school gets their own, and changing yours changes nobody
else's. It is the whole of the Dashboard page, and the same board is also Reports \u2192 Overview.

The default layout is fourteen tiles over Last 30 days versus the previous period: two widgets ("Up next" and
"Needs attention"), four operations figures, four money figures, two trend charts, and two breakdowns by aircraft.
Every figure opens the report behind it.

- [Build your dashboard](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/reports/build-your-overview-dashboard): Move, resize, add and remove tiles.
- [Work the Needs attention list](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/reports/needs-attention): What each count means and which one to work first.

## Where else numbers show up in the console

Reports is not the only place with figures on it, and the other places do not all come from the report engine.

| Where                                      | What it is                                                                                               |
| ------------------------------------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `Reports` (web console)                    | Every report, Overview, and Scheduled reports.                                                           |
| A member's Activity tab                    | One person's hours, flights and spend over a window you pick.                                            |
| An aircraft's Utilization tab              | One tail's hours, flights and open squawks.                                                              |
| `Dashboard` (web console)                  | The console home page: fleet and people counts, the next seven days, and for admins an Outstanding card. |
| `Operations → Cancellations` (web console) | A separate cancellations screen with its own filters and its own export.                                 |

> **Note:** The stat cards on `Dashboard` (web console) are not built by the report engine and will not tie out
> against Reports. "Outstanding" there is every unpaid invoice with no date window at all; "Outstanding" on the
> Overview is the report engine's figure over the window you picked. They answer different questions.

For one person or one tail, skip the reports entirely: see
[one student's hours or one aircraft's utilization](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/reports/member-and-aircraft-activity).

## Reporting on the iPhone

There is no Reports section in the mobile app. Reporting is a web console feature, so use
`app.aerscheduler.com` (web console) on a laptop or an iPad browser.

## A brand new school sees samples first

Until the school has 5 reservations or its first invoice, Reports shows a welcome screen instead: three preview
cards titled "Revenue", "Aircraft utilization" and "Maintenance trends", each carrying either a green "Ready" chip
or a grey lock chip naming what unlocks it ("Send your first invoice", "Schedule 5 reservations", "Add a
maintenance reminder").

> **Careful:** Those preview charts are drawn with sample rows, not your school's numbers. They use the same chart components as
> the real board, so they look live. A caption on the screen says the data is a sample and a "Preview with sample
> data" toggle turns it off. The screen retires itself the moment your own numbers are worth reading.

"Go to reports anyway" skips straight through to the real page.

![Reports welcome screen](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/reports-welcome.png)

## Where to go next

- [Run a report and filter the results](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/reports/run-a-report): The toolbar, the date range, and the filter conditions.
- [Every report, and what it counts](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/reports/report-catalog): All 18, the category each sits in, and the window it opens on.
- [Email a report on a schedule](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/reports/email-a-report-on-a-schedule): Daily, weekly or monthly, to your team or your accountant.
- [Find out who changed something](https://www.aerscheduler.com/docs/reports/audit-log): Who did what, from which surface, and which fields moved.