PRE vs. POST Go Live Report Requests
During a client's implementation, some organizations may have custom reports/dashboards listed as a line item in their contract. The benefit of including reports/dashboards in their contract versus waiting until an organization has gone live to request those reports, is that organizations will be able to leverage custom report information from day 1. The alternative is that clients must submit report requests themselves to support and wait for the development of these reports to finalize.
While it is nice to have reports available as soon as an organization goes live, some organizations choose to abandon any custom reports/dashboards that are included in their contract, and reach out to NEXGEN after they have gone live.
Report Requests Reminders for Support Team
The official statement in the "Report or Dashboards Requests (Official Statement)" can be provided to clients directly OR can be used to draft an email response to a client based on the client's unique question. The most important points to make are listed in points 1-5 below. Please do not copy and paste these points to the client directly without removing informal language and internal notes.
- Clients can make as many report requests as they like. We do not "track" their requests in the sense that we do not limit organizations based on the total number of report requests they have made.
- We will never charge clients for reports without their prior knowledge, nor will we implement additional fees without a conversation with their organization's system administrator. Officially, support team does not decide on final costs but as the gatekeepers of work, we must flag items that look like they would require additional scope.
- Report requests requiring over 4 hours of research/development will be evaluated for an overall level of effort by Support team members. If it is determined that the report request will require a significant amount of research and/or development exceeding 4 hours, a scope of work may be requested to limit back and forth, and to ensure an organization truly needs the report. We do not do this to be difficult, we do it more to ensure we are not extending a report request indefinitely due to continuous edits and adjustments. For questions on this, please bring complicated report requests to Hot Ticket.
- Some organizations have additional budget in their yearly contracts to account for complicated reports. SCDWR is an example of a client that includes additional scope to cover their report requests.
- Whenever possible, please ask the client to fill out our report request template. This can help us ensure we are gathering all the necessary requirements before passing the request to our reports team.
- We do not ever want to limit a client's access to their own data, however, as a support team, we must also push back and advocate for alternatives if a report request looks like it would increase latency or negatively impact the NEXGEN system. Look out for reports that ask for multiple data sets to be combined into one, reports that ask to pull activity feed or comments data, and reports that ask for detailed records that batch items together. If usure, bring complicated report requests to Hot Ticket for further review and brainstorming.
Report or Dashboard Requests (Official Statement)
Clients can request report edits or new reports/dashboards as a part of their yearly maintenance fee with NEXGEN. While NEXGEN does not limit the total number of requests a specific organization can make, any report request that requires over 4 hours of research/development may be
subject to additional scope depending on the parameters and estimated number of iterations. NEXGEN has this requirement to encourage organizations to develop reports that are most useful to the organization. NEXGEN will never charge organizations without their knowledge, nor will the team request additional fees unless first confirmed with an organization’s system administrator.
Typical report requests asking for changes to existing reports or requests that involve new reports with clear requirements tend to fall under the 4-hour threshold.
To maximize your usage of the NEXGEN system, and to limit delays in report development, NEXGEN recommends organizations to fully document their report needs and to provide examples for the types of reports they are hoping to add to the system. Whenever possible, NEXGEN also asks that users fill out our report request template to document report needs and to verify results.
Once a report request has been submitted, items are handled on a first-come, first-served basis. We ask that organizations give our team at least 10 business days before providing an update on a report’s status. Any reports that may require additional scope will always be flagged internally and the client will be promptly notified prior to work commencing on the request.
We encourage clients to request as many reports as needed to fully utilize the NEXGEN system and are happy to discuss report needs if report limits are a concern.