How to start creating a report?
What is the best sequence to approach them?
Where to find more details on how to perform the steps?
What best practices to consider to save time and be more effective? 

Users can create both simple and advanced analytical reports by using the drag-and-drop report builder in Remedy Smart Reporting. The first step is to select data source and view. A view is nothing but a metadata layer that sits between the source connection and the report builder in Remedy Smart Reporting.

An administrator can create a view that defines relationships between tables, identifies fields that report writers can access, and defines default formatting for these fields. For more information on this, see Defining Views for Report Creation . 



Below is a step by step description of each steps of report creation :

1. Select a view for a report : The first step in building a report is to select a data source (or view) for the report. The Remedy Smart Reporting administrator defines views that you can use to create reports. See Selecting a View for a Report .


2. Define report fields, filters, and display options: On the Data page, you can build, edit, and view the report data definitions used to generate Remedy Smart Reporting reports. See Defining Report Fields, Filters and Display Options
3. Add Charts :Charts are the graphic equivalent of tables and cross-tab tables. You can use this powerful charting feature to produce advanced and visually appealing charts to display a simple summary of your data or to represent complex relationships within it. See Visualizing Report Data in a Chart


4. Add Related Reports  :To provide layers of interaction and analysis that you and other users can manipulate, you can set up relationships between multiple fields and multiple reports. See Linking and Setting up Drill Down Reports and Charts


5. Adjust Options on Design Tab : After you have defined the data for your report, you can define the formatting options on the Design page to create presentation-quality reports. See Formatting Draft Reports


6. Save with Security permission on report :When you save a report, you can apply a range of settings to the report. See Saving and Providing Access to Reports  

Note: Report design videos of respective types are available here: Creating a Custom Report Using BMC Remedy Reporting

Best Practices

• Create multiple small reports with only a few columns per use case instead of a large report with many columns to solve multiple use cases.
• We recommend not using more than 5 reports in a co-display report.
• While designing a report, we recommend using filter with smaller time frames, for example, 1 day or 1 week.
• We recommend designing a report by using a database with less data in a test environment first, and then importing the report to the production environment.
• We recommend not using Smart Reporting as an ETL tool which typically deals with high data volume.
• For more information on best practices for using Smart Reporting, see the Yellowfin knowledgebase article at Report Builder.
• Do not modify the out-of-the-box reports provided with Smart Reporting. However, if you choose to modify a report, first create and save a copy of it.

The following blog shows additional topics on Report design that may be helpful for some use cases.
Helix Support: Smart Reporting Report Design