The Order Report Designer is for creating custom Reports based off of the Reports that display within the different interfaces for Tasks, Work Orders, Service Orders, and Service Plans.
Some notable functions:
This will open up the New Project Wizard so you can create a report based off of an existing SI 2017 Report (recommended) or one "from scratch":
You can open an "Existing Report" - one that is currently Published (see below), or you can open an "Unpublished Report" - one where you have used the Save for Later function (see below). This will open a form for you to select the report you want to edit:
This will not publish the report but will save your work for future edits. If the Report is already published, you can still use this function for editing the existing report but not Publishing the changes.
This will Publish the report to your machine only. Publishing means that the report is available for use in SI 2017. It will not be shared with other SI 2017 Users. In order to share with users, you must use the Export/Import features in the Order Report Designer via the file menu:
See here for details on Exporting/Importing.
There are various Controls in the Toolbox window. Use these to customize your reports. See the Active Reports Online Guide for more information.
The Canvas is where you design your report. There are various sections (PageHeader1, GroupHeader1, Detail1, etc.) with various Fields and Controls.
The Report Explorer shows a hierarchy of all the Report sections.
The Data Explorer lists all of the XML tags that can be dragged to the Canvas.
The Properties window will display the Properties of a selected Field, Control, or Report section.