Reports
A report is a page of your business data that stays current: it reads its data with your own login when you open it. You don't build it by hand. You describe what you want to the report assistant, check a private preview, and choose when to use it. Each report also has a tile for your dashboards.
Your reports are private until you share one.
Before you start
- You need data access in the workspace (
portal:data). Without it, Saved Reports isn't shown. - Creating and editing reports needs report creation, which an administrator can turn off for a workspace, and an AI account for the agent IT chose. When creation isn't available, New report is hidden, Edit report is disabled, and hovering over it or over Report creation isn’t available right now. in the sidebar shows why.
- Reports read IBM i data with your personal IBM i login. See Personal Settings.
Create a report
- Click New report (+) on the sidebar's Saved Reports heading, or Create a report when you have no reports yet.
- Enter a Report name, up to 100 characters.
- In the message box, describe the report: what it should show, its calculations and filters. You can attach files and screenshots, as in Ask.
- Click Generate preview (the send arrow), or press Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on macOS).
The report appears in Saved Reports at once, as a draft. The assistant may ask you a question first, or reply with a private preview. Generating a preview can take several minutes. Meanwhile:
- the reply in progress shows the current step, the time so far and Steps so far;
- you can go elsewhere in Portal. When the assistant finishes, a notice says, for example, A private preview of Weekly sales is ready., with Open conversation. The sidebar marks a report while the assistant works on it and when it has replied;
- you can type your next message while you wait.
To start a report from a question you already asked, open the conversation in Ask and click Create a report. The new report's name and first message are filled in from the conversation. Nothing is sent until you send it.
Review the preview and use it
The Private preview pane shows the report and, under Home tile preview, its tile. Only you see the preview.
- To change the report or its tile, describe the change in the conversation, for example Show only overdue invoices on the tile. The assistant updates the preview.
- Use this version makes the preview your report: the report, its Home tile and its tile on the IT dashboard switch to it. The report page opens.
- Discard preview drops the preview. Your report stays as it was.
Until you choose Use this version, your current report stays unchanged and keeps working. Each assistant reply shows what became of its preview: In use, Preview ready, Used earlier or Earlier preview.
Click Back to workspace to leave the conversation.
Stop or try again
Stop, in the reply in progress, stops the request. The request is then marked Stopped. Your report is unchanged. When a request didn't finish, was stopped or was interrupted, Try again beside it sends it again.
A request is stopped if it takes longer than 15 minutes, unless your administrator changed that limit. Ask for a smaller change.
Change a report
Open the report and click Edit report. The conversation opens where you left it, and the preview pane shows Current report until you ask for a change. Then review the new preview and use it, as when you created the report.
Conversation options, below the conversation, has Start new conversation. It starts afresh from your latest successful preview, or from your saved report if there is no preview. Earlier messages stay visible under Show earlier conversation, but aren't sent to the assistant. Use it when Portal says the conversation is too large to continue, or that the environment or AI account changed.
Drafts
A report you have never used a version of is a draft. It is listed in Saved Reports, and opening it opens its conversation. A draft can't be pinned, shared or sent to IT. You can rename it from its sidebar row, file it in a folder, or delete it with Delete draft in its conversation.
View a report
Open a report from Saved Reports, from its tab, or with Open report ↗ on its tile. A report's own controls, such as filters, are part of the report the assistant wrote.
The report reads its data with your own login each time it loads, so you see only what that login can read. IBM i data is read again every time. Data from outside IBM i, read by a script or a data tool IT provides, can be reused for a while before it is read again: five minutes by default, and between 30 seconds and an hour as the report sets it. People viewing a shared report can see different rows.
A report stays as you left it while its tab is open: switching to another tab and back keeps its results and the filters you set, without reading the data again. Click Refresh above the report to load it again with current data. This resets its filters. Pointing at Refresh shows when the report was loaded. Closing the tab and opening the report again also loads it afresh.
Each of a report's queries returns at most 100 rows; any further rows are left out. If a report needs more, ask the assistant to total or filter the data in its queries.
Messages you may see:
| Message | What to do |
|---|---|
| This report uses IBM i data that IT has not made available to you in the Portal. Ask IT or the report owner for access. | IT's data access rules don't include a table the report uses. |
| IBM i is unavailable. Check your personal login, connection and certificate settings. | Check your login under Profile Settings → IBM i Connections. |
| Query time limit exceeded. | The query took too long. An IBM i query has about 1.5 seconds to run, plus up to 5 seconds to sign on; a script reading data from outside IBM i has about 35 seconds. Try again, or ask the assistant to make the query simpler or more selective. |
| The IBM i request timed out. | IBM i didn't answer in time. Try again later. |
| Report request timed out. Try again. | The browser stopped waiting for a result, after 45 seconds. Try again. |
The buttons at the top of a report are Edit report, Share, Pin to dashboard, Pin to IT dashboard, Request a change and Delete, as available to you.
Rename, change the icon, or delete
- Rename: click the pencil beside the report's title (Rename report), or the pencil on its sidebar row, which also works for drafts. Type up to 100 characters, then press Enter or click away; Escape cancels. The new name appears everywhere at once, without changing the report.
- Icon and color: click the icon to the left of the report's title and pick one of 107 icons and a color (Default, Blue, Teal, Green, Amber, Purple or Rose). Type in Search icons to narrow the icons by name or meaning, for example invoice or delivery, and press Enter to pick the first match. The change is saved at once and shows in the sidebar, tabs and tiles.
- Delete: click Delete, then Delete report in Delete report?. The report is removed from your saved reports, dashboards, folders and IT dashboard. If you shared it, the people you shared it with can no longer open it. This can't be undone. While the assistant is working on the report, stop it first. The tasks behind the report's conversation stay in IT's task history for the usual time.
Organize reports in folders
Folders are yours alone: only you see them, and filing a report doesn't change who can open it.
- New folder, on the Saved Reports heading, asks for a Folder name and, once you have folders, a Parent folder (None (top level) or a folder). Click Create folder.
- Hover over a folder, or move the keyboard focus to it, for Rename folder, Move folder and Delete folder.
- To move a report, click Move on its row, choose a Folder (No folder, or a folder by its path, such as Sales › 2025) and a Position (At the top, after a report, or At the bottom), then click Move.
- Or drag: a report onto a folder's heading files it there, last; onto the Saved Reports heading takes it out of its folder; between two reports places it there. Folders drag onto folders the same way. Holding a dragged item over a closed folder opens it. Dragging doesn't work while you search.
- Delete folder removes the folder and the folders inside it. Their reports move to the folder above, or back to Saved Reports. No reports are deleted.
Folders are listed first, then your reports outside folders, then Shared reports. You can file a report someone shared with you in your folders too.
| Folder limit | |
|---|---|
| Folders in a workspace | 100 |
| Depth | 5 levels, counting the top level |
| Name | 1 to 100 characters, different from the other folders in the same place (ignoring case) |
Share a report
Where IT has turned on Allow report sharing for the workspace, you can share a report you own with everyone who has report access there. You can't choose individual people.
- Open the report and click Share.
- Read the Share report dialog. The people you share with can open the report and pin it to their dashboards. They can't edit it or see your conversation with the report assistant, and each person sees only the data their own login can read. Anything written into the report itself, such as text or numbers not loaded by a query, is visible to all of them.
- Click Share with everyone.
The report's description then says Shared with everyone in the workspace.
- Sharing shares the version you use at that moment. When you later choose Use this version, the others keep seeing the earlier version, and the button reads Update sharing: click it, then Update shared version.
- To stop sharing, click Shared (or Update sharing), then Stop sharing. You can always stop sharing, even after IT turns sharing off.
- A report must have a version in use before you can share it. A report whose own scripts read data from outside IBM i can't be shared yet (Reports that use data from outside IBM i cannot be shared yet.). Reports that use a data tool IT provides can be shared.
- If IT turns sharing off, shared reports are hidden from everyone but their owners until it is turned on again.
Reports shared with you are listed under Shared reports in Saved Reports, marked Shared by and the owner's name. You can open them, pin them to your dashboards and the IT dashboard, file them in your folders and ask IT to change them. You can't rename, edit, delete or share them, or change their icon.
Ask IT to change a report
Request a change on a report sends IT a request that includes the report's name and description and the filter values you are using, for you to review first. See My Requests.
Sample reports
Add sample reports appears on Home only in development and test setups of CoderFlow that have built-in sample data. It adds three private example reports on sample receivables data: Overdue summary, Customer balances and Detailed invoice report. Clicking it again adds back any you deleted. A standard CoderFlow server doesn't offer sample reports, because its reports read your own IBM i data: create a report instead.
Ask CoderFlow
Ask CoderFlow reads, in the Full edition, your saved reports and those shared with you: their names, who shared them, whether a version is in use or waiting in preview, whether yours are shared, and whether one is being generated. It never reads a report's content, queries or results. It can link you to a report, New report, Edit report, Use this version, Stop or Discard preview, Try again, Start new conversation, Rename report, Delete, Share, Stop sharing, Request a change, or Pin to IT dashboard in Portal, where you use the control yourself. It doesn't create or change reports. Folders, moving reports, icons and colors, and sample reports are rarely used, so Ask explains them from this page.