Reporting and Analytics
Building a report
The flow is: choose a table, add conditions, choose a type, then configure grouping and aggregation. Common types include list, bar, pie, donut, line, pivot, gauge, heatmap, calendar, and single-score. Group by sets the x-axis; stack by adds a second dimension; aggregate chooses count, sum, average, min, or max. Reports respect ACLs - a user sees only the records they are permitted to read, so two people can legitimately see different totals on the same report.
Distribution
Reports can be added to dashboards, shared with users, groups, or roles, scheduled for email delivery, and exported. Personal reports versus shared reports is a recurring distinguisher.
Performance Analytics
Performance Analytics is a separate application for trends over time rather than a point-in-time snapshot. Learn the vocabulary:
- Indicator - the metric being tracked (e.g. open incidents).
- Breakdown - the dimension to slice by (priority, assignment group).
- Data collector - the scheduled job that gathers scores.
- Score - the value of an indicator at a point in time; target sets the goal.
If the question asks "how many incidents are open right now," that is a report. If it asks "how has the open incident count trended over the last 90 days," that is Performance Analytics.
Traps
Grouping by a reference field requires dot-walking; a "trend by" option needs a date field; and a report on a table the user cannot read returns nothing rather than an error.
Rule of thumb
Snapshot = report. Trend over time = indicator.