We have made some improvements to the way that Community Insight manages and communicates the status of report generation. Previously, when you requested a report for a stock group, it would show as report pending. However, if the stock group area was not valid (e.g. because it was too small) and unable to create a report, then the report would remain pending indefinitely. This was understandably frustrating and to remedy this, we have improved the status messages so that if a stock group is not valid, this is now highlighted, so that you can edit the stock group and generate a new report.
Why do reports get stuck pending?
Generating a report should take roughly 10 -15 minutes. If the report has been pending for a lot longer than this, there may be a problem with the way the stock group was created or there may be a backlog of reports waiting to be generated.
Stock group too small to produce data
When you create a stock group by drawing on the map, you can draw an area as large or small as you like. However, in order to generate a report, the area must be large enough to produce data. For this, the area must cover at least 50% of the residential postcodes in at least one output area. On average an output area has an average population of about 310 residents. If you are not familiar with output areas or statistical geographies then check out this handy beginners guide to statistical geographies.
An output area in Teeside
A lot of reports have been requested at once
Sometimes your reports will show as pending for a long time if a large number of reports have been generated at once, in which case your reports will be added to a queue. While we cannot prevent this from happening, we have improved the way we monitor this to ensure that we can step in and speed up the process if necessary.
New status Updates
You will see the following changes when generating reports in Community Insight.
Immediately after creating a stock group, the Report button will read as Report Unavailable and not be clickable until the area has been successfully created (this should take a couple of minutes).
If the area you have created is too small, the Report button will read as Area failed. You will not be able to generate a report for that area. You then need to edit the area so that it is large enough to generate a report.
If the area has been successfully created, you will see the Request Report button.
Once clicked, it will read Report Pending until the report is generated and published in the Reports tab
How to fix a stock group that is too small
If you do create an area which is too small and you see the Area Failed text, then you can just edit the area and expand it until it is large enough to create data.
Get in touch!
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us on support@ocsi.co.uk or give us a call on 01273 810270
