Customising reports

OTB Works produces a board pack, a monthly status report and an assessment export. This page covers what you can change in each.

Board pack sections

The board pack is built from a fixed catalogue of sections. You choose which sections to include. You cannot reorder them or rename them.

• Presence: you tick the sections you want each time you generate a pack.
• Order: fixed. Sections always appear in catalogue order, which is also the slide and print order.
• Title: fixed. Each section has one title.

A published pack records which standard sections you left out, so an omission is never silent.

Section	Standard	Notes
Status by workstream	Yes
Work packages needing attention	Yes
Changes since last report	Yes
Money against budget	Yes	Shown only to readers with cost visibility.
Top risks and issues	Yes
Benefits progress	Yes
Decisions needed from the board	Yes
Runway	No	Shown only to readers with cost visibility.
De-scoped	No
Acceptance and sign-off	No
Assessment coverage	No	Named after the framework or frameworks your instance assesses against. Not offered if there are none.
Resourcing	No
Schedule	No

A reader without cost visibility sees a sentence saying money is withheld, never a zero.

Choose sections and generate a pack

You need permission to generate a board pack (the Deliver Manage level, or the permission to edit costs). Readers without it see the pack but no authoring controls.

1. Open Prove, then Board pack.
2. Check the Financial year. It is filled in from your instance settings. Change it if needed.
3. In the section list, tick the sections to include.
4. Select Generate the board pack.

The new pack appears under Previously generated. Each pack is a frozen record. The page, the standard deck and any template-based deck all render the same record.

Sections appear in the report in a fixed order. There is no control for reordering them.

Monthly status report

The monthly report is written in Prove, then Write the month. Each in-scope work package shows the tool’s own reading for the period. You can confirm it or override it.

1. Open Prove, then Write the month. Use the period buttons to move between months.
2. For each work package, confirm the reading or choose to override it.
3. To override, choose Report as Green, Amber or Red and give the reason. A reason is required.
4. Add commentary if you want to.
5. Select Publish for the period.

When you override, the report shows both the tool’s reading and yours.

The monthly report has a fixed layout. It has no section picker and no template library.

The template library

The template library lets you produce the board pack, or an assessment export, through your own branded document. Each library holds templates for one kind: board pack, or assessment.

Where to find it:

• Board pack: Prove, then Board pack, in the Templates panel.
• Assessment: on an assessment page, in the same kind of panel.

Who can manage templates

Managing the library (upload, set default, delete, download) needs the template-management permission, which the Admin role holds. Generating a document from an existing template is a different, lower permission: the same one used to read or generate the pack. Someone who generates the pack each month cannot upload a template by that alone.

What a template is

A template is a PowerPoint (.pptx), Word (.docx) or Excel (.xlsx) file containing merge tags. The tag syntax is Carbone’s. The maximum upload size is 15 MB.

OTB supplies a default template for each kind. It carries no branding. It cannot be deleted.

Merge tags

Every tag must start {d.. The product checks every tag, both when you upload and again just before each generation. A tag it does not recognise, or that is split by formatting, is refused with its location named. Nothing is passed through silently.

Tag	Gives
{d.sections.<id>.title}	The section’s title.
{d.sections.<id>.text}	All the section’s lines joined with “; “ into one string.
{d.sections.<id>.lines[i]}	The section’s lines, as a repeating list. Needs a matching [i+1] marker around the repeated region.
{d.sectionList[i]...}	A loop over every section the pack included, in catalogue order.
{d.meta.title}	The document title.
{d.meta.period}	The period.

Carbone formatters can follow a tag, such as :upperCase. The product checks the path, not the formatter.

A section you did not include renders as “Not included in this report.” If a tag is still visible in the output, generation is refused rather than handing back a document with a raw tag in it.

Section ids for a board pack template:

business_case_scope, business_case_descoped, status_by_workstream, attention, changes, money, runway, risks, benefits, decisions, acceptance, assessment_coverage, resourcing, schedule.

Section ids for an assessment template: summary, scores_by_area, findings_by_severity, methodology.

business_case_scope is available for the business case report only; a periodic board pack does not offer it.

Upload a branded template

1. Prepare a .pptx, .docx or .xlsx file. Put a tag such as {d.sections.status_by_workstream.title} and {d.sections.status_by_workstream.text} where you want each section.
2. Open Prove, then Board pack.
3. In Templates, choose a file under Upload a template.
4. If a tag is refused, the message lists each problem with its location. Fix the file and upload again.

Set a default and generate

1. In the Templates list, open the row menu on your template and choose Set as default. It is marked In use now.
2. Select a generated pack under Previously generated.
3. Select Download deck, library template.

The file you receive is in the same format as the template. A summary of what was bound appears under the buttons.

Using a customer-supplied template (any template other than OTB’s default) needs the white-labelling module in your licence. OTB’s default template does not.

You can also select Download deck, your template and choose a .pptx file directly, without adding it to the library. This also needs white-labelling.

Download deck, standard gives OTB’s standard deck.

Branding

Under Admin, then Branding, you can set:

• Product name: shown on the sign-in page, the browser tab, outbound email and the board pack.
• Logo: choose a file.
• Colour: tick Use our own accent colour and pick one.
• Sign-in footer documents.
• Support contact: shown on the sign-in page.

A preview shows the result. Stop white-labelling returns to OTB’s defaults. White-labelling is part of the Enterprise edition and is available as an add-on on any edition. Administrators always see the page, with the edition that would unlock it.

Raw exports

Under Admin, then Import and export, Export this programme offers:

• programme.json: the whole programme. Cost figures are left out, not zeroed, if you do not hold cost visibility.
• deliverables.csv
• raid.csv

Each file is named with the date. Each export is written to the audit log. Exports need administration permission, and are not blocked by a lapsed licence.

The audit log can also be exported as CSV with the same filters as the screen.

Printing

On the board pack page, Print / Save as PDF prints the selected pack.