Report structure

Unlike standard letters, reports are made up of 3 separate elements which when combined make a single report. The report must contain all 3 elements in order for it to work correctly.

The 3 elements used to make a report are:

• Header
• Content
• Footer

Before even attempting to create and amend reports it’s imperative you understand what makes each part of the report and the role each part plays as without this basic understanding you’ll struggle to get any kind of output that makes sense!

The 3 parts of the report when combined make 1 page of the report, so each page of a report has:

Header: The header part of the report will appear on the top of EVERY page of your report so understandably you cannot have different text appearing at the top of each page. As a rule of thumb when you are creating reports for multiple records you would not merge any property or applicant details as the system will be unable to determine which record you want to use in the header. Commonly the header will be made up of fixed text and possibly a date or negotiator merge field.

Content: The content part of the report is where the bulk of the information the report will display is stored. So for example if it is a property report you are creating then this section will display the property related merge fields that you want to be displayed in the report. If the report is to contain records of 5 properties you would NOT add the merge fields 5 times but only the once. The controls for how many records are displayed are controlled elsewhere.

Footer: The footer part of the report will appear on the bottom of EVERY page of your report so understandably you cannot have different text appearing at the bottom of each page. As a rule of thumb when you are creating reports for multiple records you would not merge any property or applicant details as the system will be unable to determine which record you want to use in the footer. Commonly the footer will be made up of fixed text and possibly a date or negotiator merge field.

N.B. You do NOT have to have any text in the header and/or footer of the template so should you wish to have a blank header or footer then use the EA Default Blank Header or Footer template for the header and footer parts of your report.

Another key point to note is that the margins of the 3 reports need to be the same as the system cannot print different margins on the same page for the 3 different parts of the template. Failure to set these the same will result in the system using the largest margin contained in any of the report parts across the whole report, causing the output to look strange and you to be confused as to what has happened!