Question Reports

As we all know, the reports are written using very old code (from phpGedView) that is difficult to develop/maintain. It is now time to replace them.

I don't just want to write the same reports using modern code. We need to think about what reports are actually needed.

Many of them are logically the same as advanced-search, but with PDF outputs (births, deaths, marriages, etc.)
So would it be better to have an improved search with the ability to export the search results to XLS / CSV / PDF?

What reports are actually wanted?

In general I would appreciate to have a report generator where
- fields could be selected
- search filters could be set
- user defined report schemes could be saved for furhter use
- generated reports could be saved or printed in various formats at least PDF, CSV, PNG

We use the individual report most of all as a cover sheet for the printed documents in our private archive. That report could be improved when the marriage date of the parents could be added.

Furthermore reliable reports would be helpful for

1. Births
2. Baptisms
3. Marriages
4. Deaths
5. Burials
6. Occupations
7. Sources
8. Changes
9. Missing data

What is in general the difference between 'Lists' and 'Reports'?
Shouldn't these be grouped together?

I think reports should not only outputs to external documents, the output could additionally a wt page (like 'Lists').

Beside this, for the 'Reports', I would wish the possibility to create an advanced search (as you mentioned) with customizable criterias and that I can save this search as a own report or as an template.
E.g:
- show me all families in alphabetical/chronological order (-> same as the 'List')
- show me all families where the name starts with an 'x' (-> same as the 'List')
- show me all families where at least one name includes the string 'xyz' but not 'abc'
- show me INDI x with the descendants over 1 generation AND ancestors over 3 generations incl. partners AND children
- show me all Indis that emigrated between time1 AND time2 from place x
- show me all families married between time1 AND time2 sorted by the number of children
- show me all unmarried INDIS with name X living in place Y AND place Z between year1 AND year2
- show me all INDIS without a portrait photo
- show me all TODOs sorted by INDIS
- show me all TODOs ordered by creation date
- show me all INDIS from country y before year x sorted by occupation
- show me all INDIS without a birth date OR death date OR ...
- ...

Is something like this feasible?

The Fancy Treeview module generates a kind of report (descendants and ancestors). The output this module generates is very much wanted. Maybe it's time to integrate it in webtrees?

Some ideas from me ...

Function of Reports
• Clear presentation
• Maintenance of data consistency

Reports versus Diagrams and Lists
• Reports are table-oriented (unlike charts, which are graph-oriented)
• The distinction between reports and lists is unclear.

Data sources for reports
• All data in a family tree
• Search results
• Clippings Cart

Output formats
• Screen (HTML)
• pdf
• csv/json/xml

Basic functions
• Select data source (search/clippings cart)
• Filter (Sex/Alive)
• Sort
• Specify output format (pdf and paper format, csv, ...)

Report types
• Events (sorted by date or by location (PLAC/_LOC))
o birth
o baptism
o first communion
o marriage
o divorce
o death
o burial
• Occupation
• Causes of death
• Birthday list
• Communication Details
o address
o Email
o Telephone/fax
• Source hierarchy (source citations, sources, archives)
• Location Hierarchy
o PLAC
o _LOC
• Associated personal references (godparents, witnesses, ...)
• Family relationships to a subject (ordered by distance - parents/children/partner/siblings, grandparents/grandchildren/cousins, ...)
• Image gallery

Profile (all information: events, properties, notes, sources, photos, ...)
• person
• family

Ancestors and descendants of an individual
• Table form (compact)
• Narrative form (formulated report, ordered by generations)

Special reports
• Statistics
• Implausible data
• Missing data
• Changes (protocol)

@ungeahnt and @Bogie: I like your idea that it should be possible to store tailored reports for later reusing them. This can be done maybe like it is now implemented in the custom module GVExport: you can store any setting (options, selected individuals, ...) per user and per tree by defining a name for that setting. You can download such settings as file, you can distribute a link to such settings by an URL link, you can save such a link in your favourites or in the tree favourites).

@JustCarmen: FancyTreeView is for me the most valuable report. As you can see I have integrated it already into my above report list (Ancestors and descendants of an individual / Narrative form).

The Fancy Treeview module generates a kind of report (descendants and ancestors). The output this module generates is very much wanted. Maybe it's time to integrate it in webtrees?

This would get my vote. It is ideal for an informative narrative when you don't necessarily need a hard copy print out.

I also like the idea of being able to easily export various lists and tables with self-selected fields.

There are some more reports already available for an admin in the control panel (Log file, GEDCOM errors, duplicated records, ...). It is good that reports are visible depending on the role of the user (visitor, admin, ...), but should they be
- spread over the GUI (you can call them in the most fitting environment)
- concentrate them in one menu ("reports"); the report menu could have submenus (like "event reports" / "profiles" / "administrative reports" / ...)

hermann wrote:

There are some more reports already available for an admin in the control panel (Log file, GEDCOM errors, duplicated records, ...). It is good that reports are visible depending on the role of the user (visitor, admin, ...), but should they be
- spread over the GUI (you can call them in the most fitting environment)
- concentrate them in one menu ("reports"); the report menu could have submenus (like "event reports" / "profiles" / "administrative reports" / ...)

I would support the idea to gather all kind of reports in one menu but show only menu items whith respect to the distinct user role.

JustCarmen wrote:

The Fancy Treeview module generates a kind of report (descendants and ancestors). ... Maybe it's time to integrate it in webtrees?

Actually the Fancy Treeview module is the best report we have. It is a very special report, though. I would not make it avaialble for visitors in my installation because it makes the work of data thieves and crawlers too easy. I have just found my data and pictures including watermark in other trees and even ancestry.

But I would support to make it a core module of webtrees anyway.

ungeahnt wrote:

Beside this, for the 'Reports', I would wish the possibility to create an advanced search (as you mentioned) with customizable criterias and that I can save this search as a own report or as an template.

some more examples:
- show me all FAMs with any missing sources and ...
- show me all INDIs with any missing sources and ...
- show me all INDIs with missing sources of tag BIRT / BAPM / DEAT / BURI and ...
- show me all INDIs with tag 1 FAMS and of sex ... with missing name of TYPE MARRIED
- show me all INDIs with name of TYPE MARRIED and missing GIVN / SURN
- show me all INDIs with missing tag 1 RELI
- show me all tags CAUSE of DEAT records
- show me all SOURces with missing QUAY tags
- show me all TODOs of FAMs sorted by ...

That's a lot of Christmas wishes and the list will be endless. It sounds like the request for a user friendly point and click report engine that allows the user to create ANY report on demand. I suspect that the challenge is with the current database model where you cannot simple pick the the required columns from various tables and arrange them like in a spreadsheet. Consequently every single report will have to be coded by a developer.

Let's try to be realistic.

I began my adventure into genealogy over 50 years ago when I found a book that had outlined a portion of my family, and eventually talked to and studied genealogy under the aged author. This was long before I turned to IT as a profession and volunteered at a genealogy research center.

From those early days my goal was to, at the end of my time on this earth, produce a book that included the findings I made on the whole of my family rather than the parts that my mentor had authored. Much of the struggles he had producing his book was managing the information and compiling his hand written note cards into a type written document.

Having been so closely associated with computers, document management, library science and other modern publishing technologies I realized early on that a well organized database of facts, relationships, photos, stories, and histories would be invaluable to creating my book. phpgedview, and webtrees have fulfilled much of my need for this organization. Where they have fallen apart is the ability to get at the entered data to formulate a book, or at least format the data (via report) in such a way to begin a book like output. My mentor found himself writing and rewriting pages over and over as bits of information came forth from his note cards, because information from each card could be used in various places in his book.

Toward my goal for generating some kind of a book. The output would need to be importable into a word processing software. Three word processors come to mind, MS-Word, Google Docs, and LibreOffice. They can all read PDF, .docx and .odt files. I prefer .docx because in the past I’ve had problems with layout using older PDF files into these three programs.

Reports needed would be:

Family Report A listing of key facts and events of the parents and children of a family.
Individual Report A listing of all facts and events of a specific individual.

Both reports would need to provide source notes, related pictures etc. probably some kind of config needed. I’m not sure if footnotes or endnotes are better for everyone.

Location Reports I’ve begun to use the Vesta Location module in v2.0 to provide history and images of common places found in the genealogy. For example: Farms that family members were born on with pictures of the farm included.

Image Gallery A report of images that can be organized by type (similar to the display on the main page) or some other attribute.

Ken, do you know " The Complete Genealogy Reporter (TCGR) "?

I produced several books in English and German using this tool. It offers many configuration possibilities and is available for many different languages.

My idea was, that each new webtrees report should offer a document that is comparable to a chapter in TCGR. So finally if there are sometimes in the future several reports available, it should be possible to combine them using an additional module to a complete book.

Hermann,

I don't know about that software, do you use the software a lot? I currently have my own software that does a lot of the heavy lifting already.

However the software says:

The Complete Genealogy Builder includes the following capabilities that are rarely found, if at all, in most other genealogy programs:

• Virtually all GEDCOM 5.5 standard (and many GEDCOM 5.5.1 proposal) data types. 99.9% compliant GEDCOM 5.5
• "Embedded" GEDCOM export. This encodes all external OBJE files within the exported file according to the GEDCOM "BLOB" tag standard. When imported by The Complete Genealogy Builder on another system, the OBJE files will be recreated as external files.

I don't completely understd #2 but These two things have me worried about my heavy use of GEDCOM v5.5.1 and my expected use of v7.0 later this year I'm also using the VESTA location record upgrade which will be an important addition to my book.

I would want TCGR to generate name indexes, place indexes and Mapping references. Does it do these things?

Sir Peter wrote:

That's a lot of Christmas wishes and the list will be endless. It sounds like the request for a user friendly point and click report engine that allows the user to create ANY report on demand. I suspect that the challenge is with the current database model where you cannot simple pick the the required columns from various tables and arrange them like in a spreadsheet. Consequently every single report will have to be coded by a developer.

Let's try to be realistic.

Right, we have a lot of wishes in this thread and that's what Greg asked for. I know some are simple others are complex. As I said a report generator would be nice. Let's think big and start small.

I would like to have ancestors/descendants reports (and charts) with the ability to choose matri- and patrilineality.
This would be of great help in tracing Y- and mtDNA lines

Ken, they have three products. I never used the very outdated Software "The Complete Genealogy Builder". I only use the really good "The Complete Genealogy Reporter (TCGR)". A special version of this software is offered as a SaS by MyHeritage. I'm using that software for many years and have produced three printed books and about 20 pdf books.

TCGR is supporting GEDCOM 5.5 and 5.5.1, but not GEDCOM-L, so there is no support for _LOC.

I would want TCGR to generate name indexes, place indexes and Mapping references. Does it do these things?

Yes, you have to select a person (proband) in your tree. The report is tailored for that person. It contains (as you choose): blood-related persons, indirect persons (relatives by marriage), connected persons (godmother, ...), and not connected persons (if you like complete documentation of your tree). For all those persons in the report, several name indexes can be produced. TCGR produces a chapter with maps for the locations. You can provide images of old maps. TCGR produces a report of locations (based on PLAC). You can add one image and text describing each location. If you have a NOTE for a location record (_LOC), you have to copy manually that text to a TCGR configuration file. You can write your own introduction to each chapter.

So for this thread about "webtrees Reports": It would be great if it would be possible to have at the end a webtrees report producing a printed book. The important concept for that is

• select a proband and the persons to be included in the report (ancestors, descendants, blood-related, indirect, connected, not connected), sort and filter them
• provide specialized report chapters (introduction, statistics, an overview about ancestors and descendants, narrative report for all persons, printable tree diagrams, report on locations, dates, name indexes)
• provide cross reference numbers for all the persons in a report (used in all chapters)
• support all webtrees languages
• allow the user to add a custom introduction to each chapter/report (text and images) like an HTML block or a story

Would it be imaginable to integrate a report generator where SQL statements could be handed over with the respective result columns to be used for report output?
In that case you could test your SQL statements under mySQLadmin before and c&p it to the webtrees report generator.
That would open up many ways of individual reports only limited by your SQL knowledge and experience.