Three Handy Tips for Getting Started with Report Building

By Martin Beil, Senior Product Manager, Business Intelligence & Analytics at Kantata

Success in the professional services world requires more than simply  providing great work to your clients.  Success depends on having a complete understanding of how your business is functioning, both the good and the bad. And this is where building insightful, accurate, dependable reports comes in. Reports that deliver actionable insights can make the biggest difference possible.

The Power of Custom Reports

Creating custom reports can make a world of difference to a professional services company that has its own unique processes and specific goals. While pre-built reports can provide great support, custom reporting can help PS organizations in several critical areas. 

Custom reports can provide professional services organizations with the ability to change data visualization and improve the storytelling behind the meaning of the data being reported on, such as changing weekly resourcing tactical reports to a quarterly strategic report showing long-term staffing trends. In addition, users can dial in the exact calculations to match your specific business processes, such as customizing revenue recognition calculations to use the exact methods you need without having to do additional external math in other software.

But custom reporting can feel daunting if you don’t know where to start. Here’s a few helpful tips to keep in mind as you’re getting started!

1. Stay Organized

It’s easy to lose track of your data, your progress, and your goals as you start building your reports and metrics.

To stay organized, report builders should add descriptions to each report. Without a description, it can be tough to remember the purpose of each data point being created. These descriptions should be used to explain where the data is coming from and how it’s being used to make business decisions.

Managers should also consistently use naming conventions for their reports. Being consistent about how you name data points makes it much easier to find the right data points when report building. We recommend pre-fixing custom content with an “!” and your initials, so all of your custom metrics and reports are alphabetically sorted above any standard ones, which makes searching through an alphabetical list much easier.

Also, make sure to use folders and tags. Rather than only relying on an alphabetical sort order, you can create folders and tags for metrics and reports. This is a great way to organize content by author or by the concept you want to report on

2. Create Signposts for Your Viewers

Remember that reports aren’t just for the people making them. As you create a report, put yourself into the shoes of the people using your reports. Reading information off a dashboard might not be as intuitive as you think.

To help your report viewers get the most out of your reports as easily as possible, add homepages and text descriptions to your dashboards that complement the reports you are displaying. This homepage should help direct users to what business questions each tab within the dashboard is supposed to help answer. Also, the text on these dashboards can help with the definitions of concepts, break down how the numbers are being calculated, and help explain the story behind how to read the reports.

Having these signposts up front will help avoid confusion and let new report readers quickly find critical information without needing to walk them through each report. Of course, managers should be there to help as needed, but a well-built report speaks for itself.

3. Share The Knowledge! Leverage The Experience of Your Peers

You’re not alone! It’s helpful to have other members in your organization with knowledge of report building. They can help you spot errors in your report or give you feedback on how to improve the custom reports you are creating.

While they may not be the ones building the actual reports, they will likely be using the data being built by them and, as such, can let you know just how helpful these reports actually are. This boots on the ground perspective will be crucial in continuing to shape your custom reports, both by refining existing ones and creating new ones. Together with well-built reports, your business can make critical, actionable insights into day-to-day operations.

Building Better Reports with Kantata’s Intuitive Insights

Kantata’s Intuitive Insights, releasing soon, makes custom reporting even easier.

Coming soon with Intuitive Insights, all standard metrics, attributes, and facts will be reorganized with thoughtful naming conventions and descriptions. In addition, all of our standard dashboards will now feature homepages, making it easy to find the right reports for your business to use.

And for greater support in your resourcing needs, Kantata provides users with the opportunity to meet other Kantata users, ask questions, and learn about upcoming enhancements to Insights. Plus, Kantata Insights Training provides tips from our BI consultants who can help you create the custom report that is right for your business.

Learn more about how Kantata report building can give you the custom insights you need to reach the next level in professional services.