Importance Of Reports In Application Support

Prior to understanding the significance of reports in Application Support, let us first apprehend the meaning of ‘Reports’ in this context:

“A report is document that contains information in an organized manner regarding the issues handled and the work done in the respective project, over a specific period of time“

As mentioned above, reports can be generated on a periodic basis, by the system administrator or the responsible individual, it can be done weekly, monthly and quarterly or even on ad-hoc requests if the situation demand. It could be in the form of an excel document, word document, PDF file etc. whatever suits the project requirements and the organization’s policies. 

Reports can be extracted from the application that is used for storing the information of the issues and requests raised by the customers. A format is always specified for a particular type of report, it can include different columns, fields containing the needed information, which varies according to the organizations. E.g. A report containing Request ID, Request Type, Request Description, Status etc. A report should be in a well-formatted manner in terms of presentation, easy to comprehend and the completeness of the required information is necessary. 

Keeping a track of information traversing in and out of a project is extremely important. Spending countless hours on wrapping up all the information at the end of the project is a very tedious task which may lead to mistakes and discrepancies. To avoid such problems in a long run, generating reports after a certain time interval, e.g. on weekly basis, helps to maintain the data regarding the work done on a continuous basis, which gives the top level authorities an overview of the on-goings in the project. There can be different levels of depth, at which the information is presented in reports. A report can have a very detailed view of the data or it can just represent the summary of the project giving a bird’s eye view, whichever suits the needs. This will help the top management to stay aligned with the project updates, and take the necessary measures in terms of the resource planning as needed. Reports are not only used for internal compliance purposes but can also be sent to the customer. The reports provided on request basis are called as Ad-hoc reports. These reports, however, do not have a pre-defined format. The fields and columns required here are decided on the details provided in the request by the users. Such reports help the application users to get the required information in a well-defined format which is simple to understand and solves his/her problems or queries. In application support, quarterly reports can include the data regarding amount of efforts, the numbers issues/requests raised, resolved or pending. Such type of segregation of the information gives significant insights into the project. It can include list of users in the application, which can again be segregated into active, inactive, deleted users as per the aspects of the application. Well-arranged information in the form of reports helps the stakeholders understand all the happenings in the project, over a certain period, in a very time efficient and comprehensive manner.

Conclusion:

Reports are a vital part of an Application Support project, as important details regarding the current status of the project are provided. It helps in smooth and easy transfer of information between the various levels of hierarchy of the project team and the organisation, helping every stake holder stay updated with the events and activities happening in the project

About Author:

Shreyas Sagvekar

 is a consultant in Systems Plus Pvt. Ltd. Within Systems Plus, he actively contributes to the areas of Technology and Information Security. He can be contacted at: 

shreyas.sagvekar@spluspl.com