The Redmine Reporting Plugin provides so many great features that I can’t imagine working without it anymore. So that Redmine users, who don’t use the plugin yet, can see what advantages the plugin provides, I have put together the 5 most important functions which I personally like to use.
Redmine Reporting Top 5
Without digression and in no particular order. These are my 5 most frequently used functionalities.
Create PDF files with company logo: Almost from the beginning, an important feature of Redmine was the possibility to add your own logo and company information to your PDF printouts. Since I also include a monthly hourly invoice with the invoice for our customers, this type of “branding” is important. The printout for the booked hours not only looks clean, but also contains the necessary company information and can also be sent via e-mail. Works in pretty much all areas where Redmine can be used to create a PDF file for information lists (e.g. ticket list, version list, Gantt chart, project list, time spent and also in the ticket view).
Filter options of the file list: If you want to find attachments attached to a ticket or the wiki, the Redmine standard search is a bit difficult. Especially if you don’t know the exact name of the file. The file list implemented in the Reporting Plugin is a more effective solution to find files uploaded to the system. Various filter options are helpful if I still know who the author was. What type the file is of or know the approximate time period. In addition, the file list makes it much easier to find large files that quickly block valuable storage space. If you don’t want to make the list available to every user, you can restrict access via the role and rights management.
Individually customizable project list: At the same time, we look after numerous customers and have a corresponding number of projects to manage. Then there are also some long-term projects. And sometimes you also have to research something in already completed projects. The Redmine Reporting project list can be used so individually that there is something for every purpose. With the live search in the head area, I can quickly access a specific project. There are filter options to restrict what I want to see. And various information columns to switch to. So I always get the information that is relevant for me. We have provided our project list with suitable icons. This makes the whole thing look a little bit better. And for the completion of certain tasks I have saved user-defined queries which I can retrieve at any time (see Better project list for Redmine).
Counter groups for tasks to be done: The name for this function doesn’t say unequivocally what is behind it. That’s why only a few see the benefit. This is simply a visualization of the tasks to be done. So the optical output of the user-defined ticket lists which was created by a user with corresponding rights for all users. The sum displayed is the number of tickets that are in a user-defined ticket list and expect a certain action from the user. This allows you to see at a glance, for example:
- how many tasks are assigned to me
- how many tasks are urgent
- how many tasks wait for my acceptance
We have activated the totals lists within a project so you can see without clicking on the ticket list: “Oha, I already have 30 tickets waiting for my acceptance (To Verify)”.
- Project overlapping version list: A relatively new feature is the version list. It is an addition to the roadmap and offers all possibilities of various filter options due to its Redmine typical list form. Since it can be used across projects, you can see for the first time how many versions exist in the respective Redmine projects. For me as ScrumMaster an important tool. Here I can see at a glance which are open, since when and why (e.g. still xy open tickets) and how long they have been working on it. Maybe they are long overdue. This can also be seen very clearly in the “Duration” and “Remaining Duration” columns. I do myself with the DailyStand-Ups then much more easily the coworkers on it to address and to identify possible problems. Here, too, a live search is built in. This also allows a faster search than the Redmine search in the versions.
Convince yourself of the functions of the Reporting Plugin in our Online Demo. Details about the plugin can be found at our Product page.