The Reports Tutorial
Using the Reports feature, subscribers and trial users can generate a detailed report for a pre-defined location, radius around an address, or custom region. PolicyMap built each report by grouping together similar datasets that help describe a location. Users can generate as many reports for as many locations needed without additional costs. All reports use the latest data available in PolicyMap, so what you see on the maps and tables, can quickly be turned into a report.
First, choose the type of report you wish to generate. Each report was created with the idea that the data in a report will better describe the area you selected. Here are descriptions of each report:
- The Community Profile is a snapshot of life in area, including information on its population, racial composition, age, income, workforce, and much more. See a sample Community Profile report here.
- The Rental Housing Report includes rent information by bedroom size, income, and affordability data. See a sample rental report here.
- The HDMA Report is a summary of the number, typical amount, and type of home mortgages origins, including high-cost lending activity and high interest loans by race or ethnicity. See a sample HMDA report here.
- The Home Sale Report provides a summary of the number of sales, median sale amount, aggregate sale amount, and loan-to-value ratio for 2006-2012 annually and for all quarters in 2013. See a sample home sale report here.
Once you have selected which report to generate, you can decide what area the report will generate. There are many unique ways to select or create that area:
Pre-Defined Locations – To generate a report based on a pre-defined location such as a state, county or census tract, click “Pre-defined Location”. Select a location by entering a zip code, city, state, county or other geography. (A pre-defined geography cannot be an address). You can also generate a report for census tracts, Congressional and State districts, school districts, and Metro Areas. Use these tabs to find one of these areas just as you would on the Map page. Click GO and then click the Generate Report button on the page that follows.
Radius – To generate a report for the area around an address, click “Radius”. Specify the center of the radius by typing in an address, enter the full address; including zip code. Your report area, with a default radius of half a mile (0.5), but you can change it and then click Go.
On the Preview Report Area page, users can change the radius or add a new address. The map will redraw with the radius you have chosen as a highlighted orange region. When you are ready, click Generate Report.
Custom Region – To create a report based on a region of your choosing, click “Custom Region”. You can generate a report for a custom region you have already created, select from the My Custom Regions drop down menu.
Polygon Region – Premium subscribers have the ability to upload prebuilt custom regions called Polygons. To generate a Polygon report, premium subscribers should load their data from Add Sites and selected from the icon of the polygon and choose the option to generate a polygon report or a radius of a polygon. If you choose a radius report, the specified center will be the longitude and latitude of the centroid for the polygon.
Finally, once you have generated your report, use the icons 
on the top left to save or print a PDF copy to share. All saved and printed reports will be available in your My PolicyMap section.
When printing a report, any sections which you do not want to display can be collapsed and the PDF printout will not display the data. The header for each section will still be visible.
Be sure to check the links for each unique feature in the tutorial. We’ve highlighted them on this overview, but each link will describe more information and functionality. If you have any questions or want to lean more, visit our training calendar and attend a free session or contact us at any time.
To read a full guide on all features on PolicyMap, please look at our Primer available here