4. Exporting srs Results to a Spreadsheet
You or your practice's accountant may use financial data from Partner to analyze profits and make policy decisions for the future of your practice. srs can produce thousands of different reports, but you may wish to export those reports to another program, such as a spreadsheet, in order to make graphs or combine the numbers with other information.
4.1. Transfer an srs Report to Your Personal Computer
The first step is to run an srs report and transfer the resulting file to your computer. There are two methods of doing this.
4.1.1. Option 1: E-Mail
If you use a graphical e-mail program, such as Mozilla Thunderbird or Microsoft's Outlook Express, you can send yourself a "Comma Separated" e-mail containing srs data. You can then save the e-mail to a file on your computer and open it in your spreadsheet program.
Select and Run the srs Report
Run srs, choose the category and report you need, and enter the desired date range. You can retrieve or add criteria to limit the output, if desired.
Select "Mailbox" and "Comma Separated Format"
On the Report Output Selection screen, choose "Mailbox" as the destination and "Comma Separated Format" as the output format. Press [F1 -- Generate Report] to continue.
Check Your E-Mail
After a few minutes, the report should appear in your e-mail inbox.
Save the E-Mail to a File
Click on the "File" menu and select "Save As..."
Pick a Save Location
Use the standard Windows save dialog to save your report in an appropriate location. If a "File Type" or "Save as type" option is visible, change it to "Text File" as shown.
4.1.2. Option 2: File Transfer in AniTa
If you are using AniTa, you can create a report file in srs and then run a file transfer. Follow the procedure below.
Select and Run the srs Report
Run srs, choose the category and report you need, and enter the desired date range. You can retrieve or add criteria to limit the output, if desired.
Select "File" and "Comma Separated Format"
On the Report Output Selection screen, choose "File" as the destination and "Comma Separated Format" as the output format. Press [F1 -- Generate Report] to continue.
Press [F4 -- Transfer File]
After reading the explanation of the process, press F4 to view further instructions and begin the file transfer.
Transfer Later? Note that the report file has already been saved for you. If you do not want to transfer the report now, you can retrieve it later using the srsfiles program.
Press [F1 -- Start Transfer]
After reading the instructions on the screen, press F1 to begin the transfer. The instructions for AniTa may be different from the instructions for Tera Term or other programs that connect to Partner.
You will see a message telling you to start your YMODEM transfer:
Choose "File Transfer" from the File Menu
Click on the "File" menu and select "File Transfer" to start the communication between your Partner server and your personal computer.
Click "Receive"
Click the "Receive" button in the resulting dialog box.
When the file has finished transferring to your personal computer, srs will return to the date selection screen.
4.2. Opening srs Files in a Spreadsheet Program
After you have completed one of the transfer processes described above, you will find the transferred file on your computer. If you used the e-mail method, you could save the file to any location. If you ran a file transfer through AniTa, the file will be in the C:/pcc directory of your personal computer. Follow the procedure below to load the report into an Excel or OpenOffice spreadsheet.
Launch Your Spreadsheet Program
First, run your spreadsheet program. There are many different spreadsheet programs. The most common one is Microsoft Excel™. Another popular program that is compatible with Microsoft Excel is Calc, which is part of OpenOffice.org's office program suite. PCC recommends OpenOffice to its clients and can provide some assistance with installing and using it.
Click on the "File" Menu and Select "Open..."
From within your spreadsheet program, choose the Open option from the File menu:
Find Your srs File
If you are familiar with moving around in Windows folders, this part will be easy. If not, you can find files transferred through AniTa by clicking on "My Computer," "C:," and the "PCC" folder. If you saved the report from an e-mail message, look in your My Documents folder, or wherever you saved the message.
Select Your File and Click "Open"
You may see several files in the PCC folder. Fortunately, srs gives the file a name that is based on the date you ran the report. Click on a file to select it and then click "Open."
Confirm Data Formatting Details
Some spreadsheet programs, including OpenOffice's Calc, will show you a brief summary of how the data will be imported. There may be options on the screen allowing you to import the data in a different way.
The default settings should work fine, but you should double-check that "Comma" or "Comma Separated" is selected.
View Your Data, Make Adjustments
Your spreadsheet program should load the data from the file into a new spreadsheet.
You may wish to make adjustments to the column widths if the contents of the fields do not fit perfectly. Once your data is in a spreadsheet, you can manipulate it using the various calculation features of the spreadsheet, generate graphs and charts, and create attractive, printable reports for presentations.
If you want to learn more about using a spreadsheet program, there are many books and online resources available. For help with OpenOffice, visit OpenOffice.org or contact PCC for installation assistance.