Create a custom report

Using a combination of templates and macros, you can make a wide range of reports to manage anything from customer interviews and product requirements, to IT service catalogs and more. 

In this example, we'll create a multi-team status report. Here's the scenario:

The Design, Development, and QA teams working on the Blue Sky Project need to produce a short status update page each week, containing the focus area for the week, contact person, risks, and overall status for each team. They like the way the product requirements template works, and want to be able to manage their status updates in a similar way.

What do each of the players want out of this report?

•Project Lead – Wants an at-a-glance report that shows only the status for each team.

•Team Leads – Want a summary report, including the focus areas and risks, just for their team.

•All team members – Want it to be easy to create the new page each week.

•Management Team – Want to see all the details for a week on one page, and don't want to have to look at a different page for each team. 

To meet each of those criteria, we're going to create:

1. A status update template with a separate page properties macro for each team's section of the report

2. A high level status report, showing just the status of all teams

3. A summary report for each team

4. Your first status update page

Part 1: Create a status update template

First we'll create a page template using instructional text and Page Properties macros.  

1. Go to the space in Confluence Cloud.

2. Select Space Settings from the sidebar.

3. Select Templates from the Look and feel card.

4. Select the Create New Template button in the upper-right.

5. Give the template a name; we're going to call it Status Update, so it's easy for the team members to find it.

6. Add some headings for your executive summary and for each team, as shown in the screenshot below. 

7. To help the team members fill this in, add some instructional text below the executive summary. Type /placeholder where you want the text to appear, then press Enter. The text field appears.

8. Use the text from the screenshot below, or add your own instructions, then press Enter.

9. Add a label to the template. All new pages created from this template will include the label. Select > Add labels.

10. Enter "status-update" and select Add.

11. Select Close.

1. Now we'll add a Page Properties macro to record the status of the Design team. Type /properties and select Page Properties. The maco appears and the right panel opens.

2. In the macro body, create a two column table, with the heading column on the left. Header row is selected by default in the Table options in the floating toolbar. In the Table options, deselect Header row and select Header column.

3. In the heading column, add the headings Design Focus, Design Status, Design Contact, and Design Risks. In the right column, leave the cells blank or enter some instructional text to prompt your users. For the Design Status field, add in a Status element to visually communicate the project's status. 

4. Edit the Page Properties macro and enter a Page Properties ID for this macro; in this example we'll use status-update-design. This will allow us to report on the status of just the Design team later on.
   Repeat this process for the Development and QA teams, remembering to specify a different ID for each macro; we'll use status-update-dev and status-update-qa.

5. Add any other content you'd like to your template, then Save. After you save, you can enter a Description for your template – this is what appears under your template's name in the create dialog.

Part 2: Create a report showing the high level status of each team

Next we'll create an index page, just like you see in many blueprints.

1. In your space create a new blank page. This will be our Status Report - all teams page, showing just the status of each team.

2. Type /properties and select Page Properties Report.

3. Select Edit from the floating toolbar of the macro.

4. In the Label field, type "status-update" and select it from the search results. This is the same label we added to our template. 

5. Select Show next to the Options heading. 

6. In the Columns to show field, type in the column headings you want to display. In this example, we only want to show the values of Design Status, Dev Status, and QA Status. Leave the other fields blank.

7. Select Save to update the macro.

1. Now we'll add a button to the page to allow team leads to easily create new status update pages from the template we created earlier. Type /template and select Create from Template.

2. Enter the text you want to display on the button; in this example we'll call the button New Status Update Page.

3. Select the template from the Template Name drop down (our template was called Status Update).

4. Specify the title of any pages to be created. This is a great way to keep your titles consistent. In this example we'll call the page Status update week ending @currentDate, which will append the current date when the page is created, as in the meeting notes template.

5. Select Save.

6. Add any other content, links, or images to the page, and select Publish.

7. Add a link to the page in the space sidebar, using the Add shortcut button. 

Part 3: Create a separate report for each team

Now we'll create some index pages that show a more detailed summary for each team, starting with the Design team.

1. Create a new blank page—this will be the Design Status Report index page, showing just information for that team.

2. Type /properties and select Page Properties Report.

3. Select Edit from the floating toolbar of the macro.

4. In the Label field, type "status-update" and select it from the search results. This is the same label we added to our template. 

5. Select Show next to the Options heading. 

6. Enter the Page Properties ID that was specified in the Page Properties macro in the template (in this example it was status-update-design) – this allows us to report on just information in that macro.

7. Leave all of the other fields blank (we want to show all columns from this Page Properties macro).

8. Click Save to add the macro to the page.

1. Add any other content, links or images to the page and select Publish.

2. Add a link to the page in the space sidebar, using the Add shortcut button. 

3. Create a new page and repeat this process for each team - or, as a shortcut, copy the page, and then edit the information. Remember to specify a different Page Properties ID each time - in this example, the next ones should be status-report-dev and status-report-qa. 

If your Design, Dev, and QA teams have their own team spaces, this summary report could even be created in their team spaces. Be sure to specify the space where the Status Updates pages are created in the In Space field, to ensure the macro can find the pages to report on.

Part 4: Create your first status update page

1. Go to the space where the status update page make sense.

2. Create the page using the global Create button or the contextual create button in the sidebar.

3. Select Status Update, or use the Create a new status update button to make your first status update page. Just like a blueprint, but 100% made by you.

Here's how our finished pages look.

Team Leads and the management team still have a single page for the weekly status update

The Project Lead can see the status of each team, each week, at a glance in the All Teams status report.

Each team can see their focus, risks, and status at a glance in their status report.