Clients who have used earlier versions of TimeControl and who created reports in the Legacy report writer in Formula1 spreadsheet format, may be interested in how to migrate these reports into TimeControl’s Drill Down Analyzer.

For those who were working with Legacy reports in the past and have now upgraded to TimeControl 8.4 either online or on-premise, this is the only way to get access to those reports.  For those who are considering upgrading to TimeControl 8.4 or higher in the future, this is something to look at in preparation for the move up.

The legacy Formula1 report generator showed reports in a spreadsheet like format.  The Drill Down Analyzer does this also.  This information is also in the TimeControl Reference Guide in the Drill Down Analyzer section.

Migrating a Legacy Report

First, locate one of these reports in the Report Table.

When a legacy report is selected, at the top of the screen, the Copy function will have an arrow appear on it that indicates there are other options besides just copying the report.

Hover your mouse over the Copy function and an option to Convert the report will appear.  Clicking on this will have the report be copied in DRILL format.

The report is now available in the Drill Down Analyzer as a View.  Going to the Drill Down Analyzer, selecting this View and Loading the data will make the legacy report definition’s data re-appear.

Now all the features of the Drill Down Analyzer are available for this View.  You can group data by just grabbing a column header to the summarize area above it, you can filter the data as you load it.  You can even export this view directly to Excel or elsewhere using the Export feature.  The original report definition is not deleted automatically in case you wish to copy the report more than once for other purposes.  In versions 8.4 and later of TimeControl however, the legacy report viewer is no longer included.