Reporting best practices

Creating report instances allows for maximizing server performance and saving time.

Generating an instance of a report

Every time we enable a new report and then save it in the application, we can select default parameters like Period, Users/Tags, Event Rules, etc. 

This saves time for the user when needing to execute a specific report and also avoids data processing in real-time (saving the server's resources). 

Read how to generate an instance of a report.

Parameters' tips

• Don't leave blank parameters: if you don't select any parameters, the system will not prepare the data for the report. This means the user will have to wait for it to be processed.

• Select the proper Tags and Event Rules. Selecting more users or event rules than needed reduces efficiency, making a longer data processing.
• Avoid selecting today's data, if possible. Time periods that include the current day will make a longer processing, as new device data might be still coming into the system at the moment of the execution.
• Hide parameters that the user doesn't need to change. It will avoid unnecessarily “testing” that might end up queuing reports.

• Scheduling larger reports to be sent via email helps to improve performance.

Data processing

Whenever we generate a report, the data related to that report must be processed. When we save a new report template to an application, the data related to that report (for the specific parameters we have selected) will be processed automatically every night. This allows the report to be generated immediately.

For example, if we save an Event Rule report with parameters for speeding and Fleet A, then the data for the users that belong to Fleet A will be processed overnight. When the report is generated, it will take less time to be delivered.

The data also will be ready for other reports using the same information.

It must be taken into account that when a report is saved, the data will be processed from the next day onwards. So if we generate a report requesting information that includes earlier dates than today, that data will need to be processed.

It is very important to select the right parameters in order to save time and avoid performance issues.

Midnight scheduling

Scheduling reports at midnight might sound like a good idea, but not for GPS tracking. When you schedule reports for 00:00, remember that some data is still coming in from the previous day. For that reason, the batch processing of already saved reports usually starts at 2:00 am. We recommend a later scheduled report time than midnight to allow all the previous day's data to get into the server.