The Quack Report Maker allows you to make queries into the Quack database.

Quack Report Maker query results are presented in HTML form. (click here for sample screen shot)

Quack Report Maker queries are based on three criteria:

1. Date range
2. Channel names
3. Metric levels

All three criteria must be satisfied for results to be displayed in a report.

Date Range Criteria:

Date range selection can be relative to the current date or based on a custom date range.

Custom date ranges can either be in a yyyy/mm/dd (year/month/day) format such as 2006/09/28 or in a yyyy.ddd (year.day-in-year) such as 2006.231. Both date range fields must use the same format.

Channel Name Criteria:

The set of channels which are considered when making a query are based on five fields: virtual network(s), networks, stations, locations, channels. You use these fields to narrow down the potential list of channels. If a field is left empty, it is not used in narrowing the list. Each field may contain a list. The lists are space and/or comma separated (examples "ANMO, BILL", "ANMO BILL", "ANMO,BILL"). The Preview List link will let you quickly see what channels will be selected.

HINT: use the Preview List link on the right hand side to quickly view your selection.

Glob Expressions: Except for the Virtual Network(s) field, any of the fields may contains lists of "glob" style expressions. There are two special glob characters: * and ?. * is the multi character wildcard while ? is the single character wildcard.

For example, under the channels field, if "B*" is used, all channels starting with the letter B will be selected while BH? will select
any three letter channel starting with "BH". "B*, E*" could be used to select all channels starting with B or E. If you just wanted BHZ and EHZ
use "BHZ, EHZ".

Virtual Network(s): this field may contain a list of zero or more virtual network names. For example "_FDSN, _US-TA".

Networks: this field may contain a list of zero or more network names (* and ? maybe used in the names).

Stations: this field may contain a list of zero or more station names (* and ? maybe used in the names).

Locations: this field may contain a list of zero or more locations names (* and ? maybe used in the names).
Use "--" for empty location names.

Channels: this field may contain a list of zero or more channel names (* and ? maybe used in the names).

Metric Criteria:

Check the checkboxes in front of the metrics that you wish to test against and then adjust the value levels that you want to satisfy. For example gaps per day greater than 10. You may bracket selections with AND - OR logic by selecting the second selector (which by default appears blank). For example gaps per day greater than 0 AND less than 10 (0 < gaps per day < 10).

When is selected report rows are generated when any of the checked criteria are satisfied.

When is selected report rows are generated when all of the checked criteria are satisfied.

Selecting any and a criteria that will always be satisfied (e.g. gaps per day >= 0) can be useful if you just want to see results and don't care about finding problems based on a criteria.

Clicking Show Advanced lets you (1) select what percent of days contain a problem (e.g. only look for problems happening at least 80 percent of all days) and (2) what aspects of summary statistics to display (MAX, MIN, AVG).

MAX - Maximum value of statistic recorded for date range selected.
MIN - Minimum value of statistic recorded for date range selected.
AVG - Average (mean) value of statistic recorded for date range selected.

This is can be confusing!

For example:

Q:What does it mean to display the MIN of the Max Record Gap?
A: In the Quack database the maximum record gap is recorded on a daily basis for each channel. So if you asked to display the MIN of the Max Record Gap you'll get the MIN value of the daily Maximum record gap recorded over the requested date range.

Submit:

When you have the desired criteria selected press submit to start the query. As the request is being processed, you will see a log of processing activity and a thermometer indicating progress. Your web-browser should refresh itself every 5 seconds.

Queries can be slow. If you loose patience, press the Cancel Request link. You can only have one active submission at a time.

Your report should look something like:

The Permalink to Request Form can be used to bookmark the form that generated the request. This can be especially useful if relative dates were used in the form (e.g. most recent 5 days) as the form can then be resubmitted at some future date to give current results.

Pressing Permalink to Request Form will take you back to the request form. Completed reports can be bookmarked and they should persist for several days before they are removed from the servers cache.

Clicking the icon will take you too the Quack Explore mode for this channel.
Clicking the icon will take you to a plot for the appropriate metric (e.g. gaps per day).

The Report Name in the report will be what you entered (or was auto-populated) in the submission form. If you entered a Comment (optional), it will also be displayed