Creating and designing a report

Start a new report and design it with an Xpert in the design workspace, then save it as a version.

You design a report by chatting with an Xpert. The Xpert writes the queries, lays out the page and checks its own work while you watch a live preview. Nothing reaches anyone until you save a version.

Before you begin

The report needs an Xtremepush instance with Intelligence data or synced campaigns. If it has neither, the workspace asks you to Choose an instance.

Start a new report in Analyse

1. Click Analyse in the sidebar, then Reports.

2. Click New report.

3. Choose how to start:

   Option	What happens
   Start from a template	Pick one of the Starter templates. The Xpert maps the template's datasets to your data, then shows you the page.
   Describe it	Write what the report should answer. The Xpert reads this before it designs anything.
   Copy an existing report	Search for a published report and copy it. The copy starts from its published design, with no editions.
   From a conversation	Choose one of your Assistant conversations. The Xpert drafts the report from the questions you asked and the queries it ran, and names it after the conversation.

4. Optionally, enter a Name and What should it answer?. A template report is named after its template unless you change it, and a report from a conversation is named after the conversation. For Describe it, enter both.

5. Click Create from template or Create and design.

The design workspace opens. For a template or a conversation, the Xpert starts drafting straight away.

You can also start a report from the Assistant or from an HTML artefact. See Using reports with the Assistant, Flows and tickets.

Design the report with the Xpert

To open the workspace for an existing report, click Design on the report's page, or Continue designing if a draft is already open. The subtitle shows where you are, for example Draft v3 · v2 is live.

The workspace has three areas: the chat, the preview and a panel of tabs. On a phone, these become one row of tabs: Chat, Preview, Sources, Delivery, Code and, once a version is published, Compare.

1. In the chat, tell the Xpert what the report should show, for example Add weekly sends by channel as a bar chart. Ask for one change at a time.

2. Check the Preview. To preview another recent period, choose it in the period list beside the preview. A preview can cover up to 31 days. This changes only what you are looking at; each run of the report always covers its own period. If the preview is empty, the period may have no data yet: choose a period you know has data.

3. To check the page in dark mode, click Dark.

4. Keep asking until the page is right. The Xpert tests each query before it uses it and tells you what it changed. It also checks how the page looks in light and dark mode and fixes what it finds before it replies. If it could not fix something, the reply says so.

A design request can take a few minutes. You can leave the page and come back; the reply waits for you. If a reply does not arrive, click Ask again.

The page's commentary comes from narrative sections that the Xpert writes for each take. Each template starts with its own, such as Three things to know or Verdict. Ask the Xpert to add, remove or change them.

Sources tab

Sources lists the report's datasets and, under Narrative, its narrative sections. Each dataset shows its title, its source (Intelligence query or Xtremepush campaigns), any comparison, and how it did in the last preview:

To change a dataset's SQL yourself:

1. Expand the dataset and edit the SQL.

2. Click Test the edit to run it for the preview period. Testing saves nothing.

3. Click Save.

Report queries are read-only and can only be SELECT queries. To change an Xtremepush campaigns dataset, ask the Xpert.

To change a narrative section's instructions, click Edit instructions, make your change and click Save. If the Xpert changes the same item while you are editing, click Save mine over the latest to keep your version, or Revert to see the latest.

Delivery tab

Delivery sets what a take's email and Slack message lead with. Who the report goes to is set on the report's page. See Delivering and sharing a report.

• Headline numbers: up to six, for example Sends, Open rate, Click rate, Conversions or Revenue. For each number, set:

  • Label, Dataset and Column.

  • Combine rows: sum, avg, min, max, first, last or count.

  • Format, and Currency for a currency format.

  • Change: vs the previous period or none.

  • Good when: it goes up or it goes down.

• Hero chart: one chart for the email. Choose a chart Recipe and its Dataset, or No chart. Slack messages never carry a chart.

• Summary: the commentary the email and Slack lead with, chosen from the report's narrative sections. With no headline numbers and no chart, the message carries the summary alone.

Click Add a number to add a headline number, and Up, Down or Remove to reorder or delete one. Click Preview email to see the message with the latest take's commentary, or sample text before the first take.

Code tab

Code shows the page template, written in Jinja. If you would rather not edit this yourself you can ask the Xpert in the chat to change the page instead. The template is read-only until you click Edit. Click Validate to check your change, then Save. You cannot save a template with an error; click an issue to jump to its line.

Compare tab

Once a report has a published version, Compare shows the published version and your draft side by side over the preview period, with a list of what changed. If you change the draft or the period, click Refresh.

Save a version

Your changes stay in the draft until you save. Until then, the published version keeps running, and readers see takes written by it.

1. Click Save as v1 (or the next version number) at the top of the workspace.

2. In What changed, describe the change, for example Adds weekly sends by channel. The Xpert suggests a note you can edit.

3. For the first version, choose the Xpert who writes each take. Later saves ask for this only if the report has no Xpert.

4. For the first version, set the Schedule: how often it Runs (Daily, Weekly or Monthly), At what time, and On which weekday for a weekly report or which Day (1 to 28) for a monthly one. To run the report only by hand, leave it on Not scheduled. Later saves do not show the schedule, so set it carefully: you cannot change it after the first version. A private report is never scheduled, and the dialog says so instead.

5. Click Save as v1 (or whatever the next version number is).

Schedule times use your browser's timezone, which the dialog shows, for example Times are in Europe/London. The schedule starts once the version is saved.

XpertOS checks every dataset and the page before it publishes the version. This can take a minute. If a dataset fails or the page has an error, the dialog lists what to fix. If the check could not run, click Try again.

To throw away a draft and go back to the published version, click Discard. A report that has never been published keeps its first draft.

Check figures that are not live

Every figure on a report normally comes from your data. Sometimes a page needs a figure that no query can give yet, such as a target agreed in a meeting. The Xpert can then type the figure in and mark it as not live. It does the same when it converts an HTML artefact and cannot link a figure to your data.

On the page, a figure that is not live has a dashed underline and a static badge. Hover over it to see why it was typed in. In the PDF, it has a † mark instead of the badge, with a note at the foot of the page.

When you save a version, the dialog shows how many figures are not live. Hover over the count to see each figure and why it was typed in. You can still save. These figures stay exactly as typed in every take, so check that they are still correct before you save. When the data exists, ask the Xpert to replace them with figures from a query.