OTISS provides a range of pre-defined Excel and PDF reports to provide summary charts and detailed information about the surveyed trees. In addition, you can customise your own Excel Report Templates (styles, colours, columns, charts, etc.) and OTISS will fill in the data. You can then save the Excel spreadsheet as a PDF document, or copy the Excel charts and data tables into your final report.
Selecting, Filtering and Sorting Data
Before you generate any of the Excel, PDF, CAD or GIS reports, you must first select what data to include in the report. This is done on the web site by selecting what data appears in the Furniture spreadsheet page.
- The Site and Survey drop down boxes provide the simplest means of selecting the data.
- In addition, you can apply filters to the various columns on the grid. Hover the mouse over the column name, and then click on the little triangle symbol that appears. Apply a suitable filter to limit the data shown. You can setup filters on several columns at once. For example:
- Only show trees that have life stage of Mature or Early Mature.
- Only show ‘Ash’ trees
- Finally, you can sort the table. Once again, hover the mouse over the column name, and then click on the little triangle symbol that appears. Sort a column in ascending or descending order. Only a single column can be sorted at a time.
The site/survey selection, filters and sorting you have setup on the table will all be used when generating the PDF, CAD and Excel reports.
PDF Reports
A few example PDF reports are available from the Furniture spreadsheet page on the OTISS web site. Under the Reports-> PDF Reports menu you will find the following:-
- Summary: A set of useful summary charts and tables.
- Report: A basic report listing all the trees surveyed.
- Recommendations: A prioritised list of the recommendations made as part of the survey.
To create a customised PDF report,
- Generate one of the pre-defined Excel Reports (below), make any required changes and use Excel File-> SaveAs and set the “Save as type” to PDF (*.pdf).
- Use the Excel Report Template feature (below) and then save the resulting Excel spreadsheet as a PDF document.
CAD Reports
The survey data can be imported into CAD drawings. Read more…
GIS Reports
The survey data can be downloaded in a variety of GIS formats. Read more…
Excel Reports
Under the Reports-> Excel Reports menu you will find the following pre-defined reports.
- Report (with/without photos): A basic report listing all the items surveyed.
- Recommendations (with/without photos): A prioritised list of the recommendations made as part of the survey. The recommendations are listed in order of urgency/priority – those with timescale=NoAction will appear at the end.
For the reports with photos, the most recent photo for each item is included (i.e. highest Pnnn number). You can select which photo to use for an item by setting the required photo’s Category to ‘Report’. If there are several photos with a Category of ‘Report’, then the most recent of these is included.
- Complete report: A multi-page spreadsheet showing all possible columns and charts. This is intended as a report that you would cut down and extract just the bits you need.
- Raw data: A spreadsheet of the raw data that was collected as part of the survey. This report is intended as a means for you to download and archive the survey data.
- For compatibility with older Excel versions, there is also a limited number of the older Excel 97-2003 format reports. But it is recommended to use the newer Excel report format.
To generate one of these pre-defined reports:-
- Select the Site and Survey, and setup the column filters and sorting to show the data you wish to appear in the report (as described above).
- Under the Reports menu, select the required report. Save the file on your computer.
- Open the report in Excel and adjust style and colours, remove un-wanted columns, etc.
- For PDFs, use Excel File-> SaveAs and set the “Save as type” to PDF (*.pdf).
- Or, cut-and-paste the charts and tables into your final report.
Note: your web browser may block the report and will be required to “Allow Popups” for the www.otiss.co.uk website.
Note: The reports are generated in a separate browser tab/window. This may take some time for larger reports or reports with photos. While it is being generated, you can continue to work on the OTISS website.
Copy Excel tables to a Word document
Once you have generated the Excel report, you may wish to copy some or all of a data table to a Word document. Laying out lots of data in a document is never easy. You may wish to consult the help manuals and tutorials about Word to learn more ways to deal with tables. The simple way to get started is as follows.
- In Excel you can select and Copy the columns you need.
- Open the Word document and Paste them into the appropriate part of the document. This will create a Word table containing the data.
- Do a mouse click-right over the inserted table and you should see a menu with some table options. There are several “AutoFit” options; the option “AutoFit to Contents” is often a good place to start.
Excel Template Reports
This feature allows you to create a customised PDF or Excel report. You can create a set of Excel Report Templates to layout your company style, fonts, colours, column widths, border, formatting, etc. Select which data columns to include in the tables and add summary tables to provide some key statistics: e.g. condition, species, etc. So rather than post-processing the report, you can do most (if not all) the work beforehand!
Please read the information at Excel Report Templates to understand how to prepare and use the Excel Templates.
Furniture Excel Data
The table below provides a list of all the possible data that you can put into the Excel reports. Consult this table while you are preparing your Excel Report Templates.
- The Column Name is the word/name that you MUST put into the header column of the table. OTISS will be looking for these names so it knows what data to put into which columns.
- Most of the columns are exactly the same fields that you used on the survey form. The data is the values you entered during the survey and the column name will be replaced with the name configured on the Customise Survey page.
- There are several other columns that are useful combinations or especially formatted variations.
- Some of the survey fields can also be used in the Summary tables.
| Column Name | Example Output | Summary | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ref | T103 | Column name can be ‘Ref’ or ‘Reference’ | |
| Type | Bench | Yes | |
| Category | Sub Type | Yes | |
| Structure | Group | Yes | |
| Height | 11 | Yes | |
| Width | 50 | Yes | |
| Length | 7.5 | Yes | |
| Num Items | 2 | Yes | |
| Measurements | Height: -3896.582 Length: -9963.718 Width: -6044.801Custom Number 1: 6511.736 Custom Number 2: 4887.466 Custom Number 3: -5089.758 Colour: 1234567890 Construction: 7 Custom Text 3: | Combine all the measurements. Does not include any fields marked as ‘hidden’. | |
| Photo Photo NoCaption |  | The most recent photo is shown (i.e. highest Pnnn number). You can select which photo to use by setting the required photo’s Category to ‘Report’. If there are several photos with a Category of ‘Report’, then the most recent of these is included. Use the column name ‘Photo NoCaption’ if you don’t want the caption to be shown. | |
| Description | Description of location or purpose. | ||
| Inscription | Inscription on a sign or bench, etc. | ||
| Survey Notes | Notes on the condition. | ||
| Condition | Good | Yes | |
| Location | POINT (-0.0000004885501829 50.99999994079486) | Location shown as WKT with latitude and longitude. | |
| Easting | 540434.12 | 6 digit O.S. Easting | |
| Northing | 824193.87 | 6 digit O.S. Northing | |
| Grid Ref | SX 12345.67 45678.90 | A grid reference format with centimetres. | |
| Grid Ref 10 | SX 12345 45667 | A 10 digit grid reference. Accurate to 1 metre. | |
| Grid Ref 8 | SX 1234 4567 | An 8 digit grid reference. Accurate to 10 metres. | |
| Grid Ref 6 | SX 234 543 | A 6 digit grid reference. Accurate to 100 metres. | |
| Area | 22.23 | Calculated area of polygon in square metres. | |
| Boundary | 7.45 | Calculated boundary length of polygon in metres. | |
| Line Length | 57.45 | Calculated length of line in metres. | |
| Site | Site Name | Yes | Site Name. Column Name can be ‘Site’ or ‘Zone’. |
| Sites | Site Name1; Site Name5; Site Name7; | List of all the sites where this item is geographically within the site boundaries. | |
| Survey | Initial tree survey. | Yes | Survey reference |
| Surveyor | Paul Moran | User’s name | |
| Inspected | 11 July 2014 | Inspected Date | |
| Inspected Time | 11 July 2014 14:35 | Inspected Date and Time. | |
| Inspect Period | 2 Years | Yes | |
| Inspection Due | 11 July 2016 | When the next inspection is due, as calculated from ‘Inspected’ and ‘Inspect Period’. | |
| customNum1 | 1 | Yes | |
| customNum2 | 150 | Yes | |
| customNum3 | 1 | Yes | |
| customText1 | Good | Yes | |
| customText2 | High | Yes | |
| customText3 | option a | Yes | |
| Recommendations | Recommendations 1: first one Timescale: 1 MonthRecommendations 2: second one (if present) Timescale: 1 MonthLong term Recommendations: third one (if present) Timescale: 1 Year | Combined text showing all the recommendations. Does not include any fields marked as ‘hidden’. | |
| Recommendation1 | Whatever text was entered for the recommendation. | ||
| Timescale1 | 3 months | ||
| Work Due1 | 11-Jul-14 | Recommendated date for completion, as calculated from the ‘Inspected’ date and ‘Timescale’. | |
| Work Timescale1 | 11-Jul-14 (3 Months) | Combined WorkDue and Timescale. | |
| Recommendation2 | Whatever text was entered for the recommendation. | ||
| Timescale2 | 3 months | ||
| Work Due2 | 11-Jul-14 | Recommendated date for completion, as calculated from the ‘Inspected’ date and ‘Timescale’. | |
| Work Timescale2 | 11-Jul-14 (3 Months) | Combined WorkDue and Timescale. | |
| Recommendation3 | Whatever text was entered for the recommendation. | ||
| Timescale3 | 3 months | ||
| Work Due3 | 11-Jul-14 | Recommendated date for completion, as calculated from the ‘Inspected’ date and ‘Timescale’. | |
| Work Timescale3 | 11-Jul-14 (3 Months) | Combined WorkDue and Timescale. | |
| Recommendation Timescale Work Due Work Timescale | as above | When doing Recomendation-only data tables, use the column name ‘Recommendation’, ‘Timescale’ rather than ‘RecommendationX’, ‘TimescaleX’, etc. |
