Reporting Groups allow you to divide your system into categories in order to both segregate what records are included in reports and limit which Drivers and Vehicles any single Managers may access

There are two different types of Reporting Groups:

  • Hierarchical Reporting Groups which automatically track your organizational structure were introduced in Portal v4.0, Jan 2014
  • Custom Reporting Groups which are the most flexible but are manually maintained were introduced in 2003

Hierarchical Reporting Groups

Disadvantages of Hierarchical Reporting Groups

Hierarchical Reporting Groups provide benefits beyond the standard Hierarchical Reporting Groups BUT they require additional manual maintenance which Hierarchical Groups do not:

  • When a Manager, Driver, or Vehicle is added to the system it must also be assigned to one or more Reporting Groups
  • When a Manager, Driver, or Vehicle has a role change (dispatcher moved to safety, Drivers home terminal re-assigned, etc) that change must also be made manually to the Custom Reporting Group configurations
  • Reporting Group Members will not change as your organization changes
  • Etc

Advantages of Hierarchical Reporting Groups

Hierarchical Reporting Groups do have an advantage over Hierarchical Reporting Groups in that they allow you to separate your system into various Reporting Categories regardless of organizational structure:

  • Groups may contain the some of the same members as other groups
    • Hierarchical groups do not support this
  • Reporting Group Members will not change as your organization changes
    • Yes! this was also stated as a 'disadvantage' - its a double edged sword

Guidance on when to use Hierarchical Reporting Groups

Custom Reporting Groups are fantastic at representing groups within the organization which cannot be clearly mapped into a Company->Terminals type of structure:

  • Eastern vs Western Safety Department
  • Dispatch Groups where each group covers multiple terminals
  • Groups which need to share members (i.e. a single Vehicle can exist in more than one group)
  • Drivers or Vehicles belonging to a particular Region not covered by a single Terminal
  • Long Haul vs Short Haul Drivers
  • Flatbed vs DryVan Vehicles
  • .... the options are virtually limitless!

Configuration of Hierarchical Reporting Groups

If your account was created after 02-2014 then Hierarchical Reporting Groups are already enabled. Simply continue adding Vehicles and Drivers to Terminals and your groups will update themselves automatically.

 

Custom Reporting Groups

Disadvantages of Custom Reporting Groups

Custom Reporting Groups provide benefits beyond the standard Hierarchical Reporting Groups BUT they require additional manual maintenance which Hierarchical Groups do not:

  • When a Manager, Driver, or Vehicle is added to the system it must also be assigned to one or more Reporting Groups
  • When a Manager, Driver, or Vehicle has a role change (dispatcher moved to safety, Drivers home terminal re-assigned, etc) that change must also be made manually to the Custom Reporting Group configurations
  • Reporting Group Members will not change as your organization changes
  • Etc

Advantages of Custom Reporting Groups

Custom Reporting Groups do have an advantage over Hierarchical Reporting Groups in that they allow you to separate your system into various Reporting Categories regardless of organizational structure:

  • Groups may contain the some of the same members as other groups
    • Hierarchical groups do not support this
  • Reporting Group Members will not change as your organization changes
    • Yes! this was also stated as a 'disadvantage' - its a double edged sword

Guidance on when to use Custom Reporting Groups

Custom Reporting Groups are fantastic at representing groups within the organization which cannot be clearly mapped into a Company->Terminals type of structure:

  • Eastern vs Western Safety Department
  • Dispatch Groups where each group covers multiple terminals
  • Groups which need to share members (i.e. a single Vehicle can exist in more than one group)
  • Drivers or Vehicles belonging to a particular Region not covered by a single Terminal
  • Long Haul vs Short Haul Drivers
  • Flatbed vs DryVan Vehicles
  • .... the options are virtually limitless!

Configuration of Custom Reporting Groups

The following page documents configuration of Reporting Groups using the Web Portal