This article provides an introduction to reports in BrightGauge. Reports consist of gauges that track key metrics and allow you to share updates with team members and clients. Whether you choose to send them out daily, weekly, or monthly, there’s a lot you can do within BrightGauge to customize your internal and client reports. You can create a report from scratch, from an existing template, or from a dashboard. To see a list of default reports, click REPORTS in the top menu bar.

To see how to build reports for your clients, refer to 101 - Client Reporting. For more information on designing reports, refer to Navigate the Report Designer. Please note that only Admin and Analyst users may create and send reports. Viewers may only receive reports.

Create a Report for Your Company

Note: Only Admin and Analyst users can create reports.

Pro Tip: To save yourself the extra time of having to add everything from scratch, copy an existing report template and modify it from there.

To create a report:

1. Click on the green plus sign at the top of the page and select Report. Alternatively, click Reports in the top menu bar, then click Create Report.

   

2. Select For My Company and click Next Step.

   

3. Select whether you’d like to Start From Scratch or Start From a Template, then click Next Step.
   • If you selected Start From a Template, select the template.
4. Select a gauge from the left side panel to add it to the report. Use the search bar for faster sorting by gauge name or dataset name. You may rearrange and drag to resize these. You’ll notice that all gauges appear in reports, just as they do on dashboards, with the exception of number gauges to keep them in a readable format.
5. You can choose to show gauges from one or multiple datasources. This is great for when you’re sending an executive summary and want to provide an overview of the overall health of a company.
6. Apply filters to your gauges to include or exclude certain team member data, date ranges, and more. Click here for details on choosing the right filter.

   

7. Add text modules for explanatory text, additional styling, and page breaks to help block off sections of your report email. 
8. Add image modules to customize with logos, team photos, and any other information you’d like to include that can’t be added by gauge or text. 

   Choose whether you’d like for your report to go out in landscape or portrait mode. Landscape mode is great for sending reports with large horizontal charts that may get cut off or squished in portrait mode.

   

9. Add a cover page to your report. Choose your report title, add your company logo (if you haven’t done so already), and customize the brand color there that accents the report cover in your account settings.
10. Preview your report before clicking send.
11. Click Save as a template if you would like to save this report for future use. If you are an Admin user, you may share this template with other Admin and Analyst users from the Your Account > Users page.
12. Click Next Step to customize your outgoing email copy, select recipients, choose whether to send as an attached PDF, and schedule the rate of occurrence. You can also enable authentication for the report to add an extra layer of security. The recipient will have to use one-time password authentication with their email or log in with their BrightGauge account to access the report.

Email Template Tokens

Use the following tokens to auto-fill data into your email subject and body:

• {{recpient_first_name}}: Recipient's first name
• {{recipient_name}}: Recipient's full name
• {{recipient_company_name}}: Recipient's company name
• {{report_link}}: Unique URL for each recipient's report (required)
• {{report_name}}: Report name
• {{report_owner_name}}: Report creator's name
• {{report_owner_email}}: Report creator's email
• {{your_company_name}}: Your company's name
• {{your_company_logo}}: Your company's logo

Build a Report Template

To build a report template:

1. Click the green plus sign and select Report.
   

   

2. Select For My Company or For My Client, then click Next Step.
   • If you selected For My Client, select the desired client.
3. Select Start from Scratch, then click Next Step. The Report Builder loads with a blank report.
4. Click Use Landscape or Use Portrait to change the report page orientation.
5. Enter a Title for the report.
6. Select gauges from the column on the left to add them to the report. Click and drag gauges to reorder them on the page.
7. When finished, click Save as Template. If you are an Admin user, you may share this report template with Analysts and other Admins from the Your Account > Users page.

Send a Report

To send a report:

1. Select Add New > Report. Alternatively, select Reports from the top menu bar, then click Create Report.
2. Select For My Company or For My Client.
   • If you selected For My Client, select the client(s) from the list.
3. Click Next Step.
4. Select Start From Scratch or Start From a Template. We recommend starting from a template.
   • If you selected Start From a Template, select the template from the list.
5. Click Next Step.
6. Modify the report as needed, then click Next Step.
7. Click into the Choose a Recipient field to select the report recipient(s).
   

   Warning: If you're sending reports for more than one client and add individual recipients, each recipient will receive a report for each selected client. We recommend selecting All Client Recipients if you have multiple clients selected to ensure that the reports are delivered to the correct recipients.

8. Edit the email subject and body as desired.
9. Click Send Report.

Schedule a Report

To schedule a report:

1. Select Add New > Report. Alternatively, select Reports from the top menu bar, then click Create Report.
2. Select For My Company or For My Client.
   • If you selected For My Client, select the client(s) from the list.
3. Click Next Step.
4. Select Start From Scratch or Start From a Template. We recommend starting from a template.
   • If you selected Start From a Template, select the template from the list.
5. Click Next Step.
6. Modify the report as needed, then click Next Step.
7. Click into the Choose a Recipient field to select the report recipient(s).
   

   Warning: If you're sending reports for more than one client and add individual recipients, each recipient will receive a report for each selected client. We recommend selecting All Client Recipients if you have multiple clients selected to ensure that the reports are delivered to the correct recipients.

8. Edit the email subject and body as desired.
9. Select the Schedule Report checkbox. The Schedule Report window opens.
10. Select the delivery cadence from the When would you like to send this report? drop-down. Then, select the delivery frequency, day, and time.
    • Now: Sends the report now.
    • Daily: Select to send the report daily at a specified time. Select the specific day(s) and time you would like the report to send (e.g., Mondays and Thursdays at 9:00am).
    • Weekly: Select to send the report weekly on a specific day at a specified time. Select how often to send the report and the day of the week and time of day to send (e.g., every two weeks on Wednesday at 2:00pm).
    • Monthly: Select to send the report monthly on either a specific day of the month or a specific day of the week (e.g., either the first Monday of the month at 10:00am or the third day of the month at 11:00am).
11. Click Update Report.
12. Click Schedule Report.

View a Report

If authentication isn't enabled, anyone with the link can access the report. If you enabled the authentication, the viewer will first need to authenticate. Learn more.

After you access a report, you can do lots of different things with the data at hand. If you receive the report as an attached PDF, you’ll be able to view everything just as it was sent. For a detailed drilldown, click the link in the report. In the web version of your report, you can click on each individual gauge for a drilldown of the metrics behind and navigate to the original source of information.

For more information on building reports for your clients, click here.