Using Statistics

The Statistics function is a tool for creating a wide range of statistical reports about your database. Some examples of the kind of reports that you can generate are:

How many records are for titles in foreign languages
How many records were cataloged in a specified time period
A comparison of the number of records cataloged in one time period versus the number cataloged in a different time period
Counts of records in each call number range
A projection of costs for future purchases, based on payments made in the past
A cross tabulation of one fixed-length field against another for a range of records (e.g., material types per branch location)

You operate Statistics by creating database queries that can be saved, re-run at any time, and scheduled to be run at specific times. When a query is run, the system starts a process on the server to gather information. Depending on the number of records examined by the query, this process may take from a few minutes up to several hours to complete. When the results of a query are ready, you can view reports based on the data in a spreadsheet-like presentation, and reformat reports based on your needs.

Statistics offers two main methods of operation, selected by clicking the tabs on the left of the main window:

Saved Queries

From this tab, you can create a new query, run a saved query, schedule a saved query, or edit a saved query. Note that this is the tab presented when Statistics first starts.

Results Files

From this tab, you can view query results and create reports based on these results.

To use Statistics, you must be assigned permission 19 (Create statistical reports). See Permissions Used by Sierra for more information.

You should choose your Statistics settings before you begin using Statistics.

Integrating Statistics into Your Workflow

When a query is run, the server acquires a user license for the process. The user license is released after the data has been accumulated.

Scheduling queries to run during low-demand hours can ease the impact on user license usage. Note that the user license for a scheduled query is taken at the moment when the query begins. If a license is not available at the scheduled time, the Results File for that query shows "No License" in the Status column. The query can be restarted manually at any time.

For a more complete discussion of user licenses and login management, please see the discussion of Administering Basic Info.