There’s a brand-new button in ArcGIS Pro 2.3: The New Report button! The inclusion of this long-anticipated functionality means that data should consider itself warned – it can no longer hide in a table. Rows will be organized and sorted, they will be counted and summarized, and trends that might’ve gone unnoticed are now exposed for all to see. Welcome to the world of reports!
The information displayed in a report is compiled directly from your geographic data or stand-alone table which can be organized and summarized in many ways. Adding a report to your project creates a new report view specifically designed for authoring and editing a report.
A key feature of a report is that it is divided into sections. Some sections are shown just once in the exported report, like the Report Header, and some sections are repeated multiple times, like the Page Footer. Using sections, you can get to the information you need and arrange it in a consistent format. All reports have at least five sections:
- Report Header, appears once at the beginning of the report and typically contains the report title. You can customize it to include additional report elements such as origination date or company logo.
- Page Header, repeats at the top of every page except the first page where it appears under the Report Header. Field headers are typically included in the page header so that every page starts with these definitions.
- Details, follows all header information and contains the attribute contents being displayed in the report. Fields listed here repeat once for every row in the source.
- Page Footer, repeats at the bottom of every page. Page numbers appear in this section by default.
- Report Footer, appears at the end of the report and usually contains conclusion information, such as summary information or data citations, that is only required once.
Grouping your data is an optional level of organization that aggregates the data by common fields – for example, you might group demographic data by county or by state. If grouping is used, the report will include two additional sections for each group level:
- Group Header, repeats at the start of each group and usually contains a label for the grouped-by value and text elements for attribute field names.
- Group Footer, repeats at the end of each group, and usually contains summary statistical information like totals, means, and maximum values, as well as graphical elements like lines and rectangles, that help separate repeating groups of data.
When creating a new report, the Create New Report pane steps you through the essential requirements: setting a data source; filtering and organizing the data; and choosing design aspects such as the template, styling and page setup. Once created, the report view will appear. In this view, the report can be enhanced by adding summary statistics, dynamic text such as the date exported, or even a company logo.
When you are ready to see your report, it can be exported as a PDF. Exporting a report pulls in the source data and generates the repeating sections to create a finished report document that can be printed or shared. Export options can be customized to produce a PDF with page ranges and numbering sequences to suit your desired final output. To share the report definition with other ArcGIS Pro users, you can alternatively export the report to a report file (.rptx). Similar to a map or layout file, a report definition can be shared between projects or users for re-use with other content. However, when sharing a report file keep in mind that it does not include the underlying data, and that it has been configured for a specific data schema.
The new reporting functionality provides another way to share a well-formatted, multi-page representation of data by helping to highlight previously unnoticed trends. What might be hiding in your data? Head to the Insert tab and give reports a try to find out!
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