Milling Job Reports Creation, Configuration and Templates

In MillBox, creating Job Reports is very easy. We will show you how to generate a Job Report and also explain how to customize the Job Report.

First you will need to have either Microsoft Word or Apache Writer (Open Office) installed on your computer.

To Create a Job Report you simply need to open the project you want, click on the Tools menu (1), and then select Report (2).

MillBox will ask you to confirm the save location and name of the Job Report.

Navigate to the path you want and save the report.
After clicking save, the Job report will be created and open with the configuration set.

Our Job Report was successfully created.

There are some optional settings that we can change to generate the Job Report. To change these settings, hold down CTRL+ALT+7 with the password of "enable" (without the quotes). The Configuration Button will appear in the lower right corner. Click to open Configuration and choose General on the left hand tool bar.

Scroll down a little bit to find the Report section.

Under the Conversion type sub-section, we can select the extension format that MillBox will generate our Job Report. The Job Report can be the same format as the template used (Microsoft Word, OpenOffice format) or you can select HTML or PDF and MillBox will convert the Report in one of these formats.

On the File Name Template setting, you can select if your file will be named after the project (Default naming convention) or if you want to use a custom name, you can use any of the codes below.
Hovering your mouse in the box under 'Template with custom name' will show the list of codes you can choose from as seen below.

Syntax Examples:

report_{yyyy-MM-dd_hh-mm-ss}
report_2020-01-09_17-46-25

Millbox_{tttt-OOOO-EEEE}_{yyyy-MM-dd}
Millbox_zr-18-CIMSYSTEM_2020-01-09

MillBox also allows you to select which file template you would like to generate your Job Reports with. You need to use the template that corresponds with the word processor you are using (Microsoft Office .DOC or Open Office .ODT). There are some samples already pre-installed, but it is possible to customize your own. We will explain how to do that later in the document.

Features A - L will be explained in detail below.

A. Template Name - Here is where your Job Report Template is located. By clicking on the three dots, you can select the template format you want to use, of either, Rich Text Format (.RTF) or OpenOffice (.ODT) when viewing your Job Report. .
B. Default output folder - This allows you to set the location of where the Job Reports will be saved by clicking on the button .
C. Item Number Size - Setting that allows you to set the numbered value to adjust how large or how small the numbers show up on your report image.

For example:

D. Lines Color - You can also select the color of the lines that will link your objects to the item number on the report image.
E. Lines Thickness - Here you can define the thickness of the lines.

Example: Red Lines / 3 set as thickness value

1. Current User View will apply the exact same view on your screen at the moment the Report button is pressed
   

2. Top View 100 x 100 will create an image using the top view with 100 x 100 (mm) dimension. This will be done from a top-down view regardless of the user’s view when they click Report.
   

3. Bottom View 100 x 100 will create an image using the bottom view with 100 x 100 (mm) This will be done from a bottom-up view regardless of the user’s view when they click Report.

   

G. Hide Object Mesh - You can hide the mesh (rendered image) of your files, only the curves / lines will appear like example below:

H. Mark the objects curve - the curves will be displayed in black colored lines.

This is how it will appear when both features are checked.

Hide Mesh / Mark Object Curve:

I. Image with white background - will remove the standard blue background that MillBox uses and will use a white background for reports.

J. Save report after toolpath generation - will automatically save your reports on the path selected after the calculation is finished.

K. Open the report after toolpath generation - will open automatically open your Job Report after the calculation is finished.

L. Use background image - will allow you to set an image in front of the Job Report image generated. By default it selects a Red Cross PNG file that helps the user to identify where the objects are by separating the quadrants. The user can set any image he/she wants, but make sure you use PNG format with transparency, otherwise it will overlap your image.

To edit the template, you will need to open your Template file with an editor like Microsoft Word (or Open Office Writer). This is what your rough template will look like:

Users can use their own template, by doing that, all the information that was in red in previous slide references into an information table inside MillBox. Below you will find a list of those codes/variables in RED that corresponds to the information regarding your job considering the list below.

• @99@ Variable for the machining file name (.CAM)
• @319@ Variable to add the name of the machine used on the report
• @1006@ Variable for the print date of the report
• @1016@ Variable to include the total time of machining. It is active after the computing of all machinings.
• @1303@ Variable for the thickness of the used stock
• @1300@/xx@Variable for records' number. The xx must be replaced with serial numbers in each row.
  • For instance @1300@/1@ - @1300@/2@ etc.
• @1301@/xx@Variable for the item's name. The xx must be replaced with serial numbers in each row.
  • For instance @1301@/1@ - @1301@/2@ etc.
• @1304@/xx@Variable for the client's name. The xx must be replaced with serial numbers in each row.
  • For instance @1304@/1@ - @1304@/2@ etc.
• @1305@/xx@Variable for the number of elements of each item. The xx must be replaced with serial numbers in each row.
  • For instance @1305@/1@ - @1305@/2@ etc.
• @1306@/X@ Blank name
• @1309@/X@ Lot Code
• @1307@/X@ Scale Factor
• @1303@/X@ Blank Size in Z
• @1308@ Variable to set the code engraved on every executed job.
• @1310@ Variable to add the strategy name that has been applied.
• @1318@/X@ Variable to add the object type.
• @1319@/XX@ Variable to show the .blk name of the object
• @135@/XX@ Variable to output the tool number
• @311@/XX@  Variable to output the  tool name
• @1004@/XX@ Variable to output the milling time for each tool (in minutes)
• @1017@/XX@ Variable to output the toolpath length for each tool (in meters) 
• @1320@ Variable to output the total toolpath length (in meters)
• @1317@/XX@ Variable to output the interface name in objects that used the Replace tool

Example of a customized Template.