Data Sources and Fields
Data Sources
A report is always about one kind of record. That choice is made when the report is created and cannot be changed afterwards.
| Data source | Reports on |
|---|---|
| Projects | Projects and leads |
| Contacts | Clients, prospects, and vendors |
| Contracts | Contracts of all types |
| Permits | Permits |
| Activities | Scheduled activities and tasks |
| Purchase Orders | Purchase orders |
| Quotes | Vendor quotes |
Reports are always scoped to your company, and each data source applies its own standard scope — deleted records are excluded the same way they are everywhere else in Readybuild.
Related Fields
Fields from related records can be used as dimensions, metrics, and filters. In the field picker they appear under their own heading, so a Purchase Orders report shows a Project group and a Vendor group alongside the purchase order's own fields.
| Data source | Related records available |
|---|---|
| Projects | Contact, House, Contact's House |
| Contacts | House |
| Contracts | Project, Contact (via Project), Project House, Contact's House |
| Permits | Project, Contact (via Project), Project House, Contact's House |
| Activities | Project, Contact (via Project), Project House, Contact's House |
| Purchase Orders | Project, Vendor, Contact (via Project), Project House, Contact's House |
| Quotes | Project, Vendor, Contact (via Project), Project House, Contact's House |
The same field on a different relationship is a different field to the report — you can put both "Project House → City" and "Contact's House → City" in one report.
Field Types
The report builder works with the same fields as the rest of Readybuild — both system fields and the custom fields your administrator has configured. What a field can do in a report depends on its type:
| Field type | Dimension | Sum / Average | Min / Max | Filter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text, Email, Textarea, Link | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Number, Money | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Date, Date & time | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Dropdown, Select, User | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Checkbox, Yes/No | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Multi-value fields | Read-only column | No | No | Yes |
Multi-value fields (a project's project types, for example) hold several values at once. They can be shown as a column in a list report — where the values read as a comma-separated list — and they can be filtered on, but they cannot be grouped by, sorted on, or measured. If a report tries to, the report still runs and a warning explains what was skipped.
Finding a Field
The field picker opens from Add dimension, from a metric's of field… button, and from the field box on a filter row. It is the same picker in all three places:
- Type in the search box to narrow the list by field name
- Fields are grouped by the record they belong to
- Custom fields are labeled Custom beneath their name
- Fields already used as dimensions are hidden from the dimension picker
- A metric's picker only lists the field types that metric's function accepts
Cost Fields and Permissions
Project cost and estimated cost fields — and any margin derived from them — require the View Project Costs permission. This matches how the WIP report and production dashboards gate the same numbers.
If a report uses a cost field and the person running it doesn't hold that permission, the field is dropped from that run and a warning appears above the results. The report is not broken and nothing else is removed — a shared report simply shows less to people who aren't cleared for cost data.
Sales-side money fields — sold amounts, client budgets, fees, and deposits — are not covered by that permission and are visible to anyone who can view the report.
When Fields Change
Reports survive changes to your field catalog. If a field a saved report references is later disabled or deleted, the report still runs: the missing piece is dropped and a warning explains it, rather than the whole report failing. Open the report in the editor to remove or replace whatever was dropped.