Reports and groups each serve different purposes, but can make a world of difference in your daily operations! Read on to learn more about the difference between the two, and when to use one over the other.

Novi's custom reporting engine can be a powerful tool for finding exactly the information you're looking for regarding membership or event fields. With close to 2,000 fields available across three different types of reports, admin users can find records that meet incredibly specific criteria and show detailed information for the records shown. Reports can be printed or exported as a CSV file.

Additionally, custom reports can be shared with non-admin users. If you need to share information with committees or board members, you should consider using custom reports.

Novi's Group feature is a great way to segment your database into groups that have certain commonalities - whether it's member type, location, the same custom field values, etc.

Groups have four main purposes:

If you're using Novi Groups as a quick and easy built-in report, that's a great idea! Just keep in mind that Custom Reports offer a wide variety of additional display column options.

Groups will only show the member name, billing address, phone, email, and open balance, with the option to set custom fields to show on "Member List View" as they are meant to help you perform an action, rather than pull information.

If you need to pull a more detailed report on these members, such as address fields split into separate columns, primary contact information, etc. we recommend using the Custom Report feature instead of the Groups functionality.

If you're still not sure which way to go, use the graphic below to determine if you should create a Group or a Custom Report: