Creating a custom report in VIP Professional is easy with the recently added "Custom Reports Builder" feature.

The Custom Reports Builder allows you to create report templates that you can save and then use just as you would any other report within VIP Professional - even attaching them to notifications.

To access the Custom Reports Builder, select it from the File menu:

This will open the lookup list of custom reports. Click the Add button to open the Custom Report Builder itself.

General information about the report template is shown at the top of the dialog. This is where you can specify the report template's name, its scope ('Private' if it is only for the assigned user, 'Public' if it is for all users), the type of the report, etc.

The Report Type allows you to choose either Tabular (rows and columns that are pre-defined), Dynamic (rows and columns based on the current grid settings), and Sectional (a report built from one or more pre-defined sections).

The Page Setup tab contains settings affecting the page orientation, size, and margins.

The Header / Footer tab contains settings for both a header and a footer that will appear on every page of the report. You have full control over the formatting of the header and footer.

TIP - right-click on one of the header / footer fields to see a list of merge codes you can insert into the field to generate dynamic text. For example, you can include the current user's name in the header / footer - this gets updated whenever the report is run to show the current user at that time. Additional merge codes and pre-defined headers / footers are available from the drop-down menu associated with each field.

The Report Title tab contains settings for an optional report title. As with headers / footers, you can right-click on a field to display a context menu of available merge codes.

The Content tab contains the details on what, exactly, you want to include in your report template. This tab changes depending on what Report Type you've selected in the top section of the dialog.

You can click on the Preview button to see what your reports will look like with the current settings:

Once you are satisfied with your report template, click "OK" to save it.

Now, any time you want to run the report, you can select it from the Print menu (though the report will only be listed if it is available for the current module -- if you are looking at the Reservation Editor, you won't see a custom report showing you all the guests in the guest directory!).

And that's it! We hope you find the Custom Reports Builder handy. If you have feedback on this feature, or suggestions on how we can make it better, please let us know.