Lightspeed Analytics offers many commonly used reports right out of the box, but its real strength is that it empowers you to design your own custom reports to suit your specific needs. You can start with one of the existing reports and add to it or tweak it to better fit your requirements, or you can start with a blank template and build your custom report from scratch. In either case, you'll want to have a clear idea in mind of the kind of report you're going to make in order to start with the right foundation.

Where to start

Certain dimensions and measures are only available in certain categories of reports, so it's important to have a clear idea of what you want the report to do before you begin.

First, you'll want to access the Create custom report tool. If you want to find out which employee sold the most of a certain product, you start with a sales report and add the necessary dimensions, such as Employee. If you want to know how many items you have with a stock quantity of fewer than five, for example, you start with an inventory report and add the appropriate filters.

If you prefer to start from scratch with a blank report template, the same principle applies. Dimensions and measures related to sales and inventory can be found in the Sales and Inventory section, while dimensions and measures related to employee performance can be found in the Employee performance section of the Reports page.

Creating a custom report

1. Go to the Reports section of Analytics, by clicking the icon on the left side of the page.
2. Select the Create custom report drop-down at the top right of the page.
3. Type and search for all available reports, or scroll through the list and choose the one you need.
4. After you select a report, add the desired dimensions, measures, and filters to produce the data you need.
5. Click Save as new report to save the report for future viewing.
6. If you wish to save this new report as a favorite, click the star beside Save as new report or in the Save Report dialog box.
7. Give the new custom report a Title and a Description.
8. Optionally, check Share with entire company to make your new report available to other users on your Analytics account.
9. Click the Save As New button in the top right to save your new report.

Changing dimensions and measures

Adding and removing dimensions and measures from a report is simple and straightforward. All of the dimensions and measures that are compatible with the current report will be listed on the sidebar on the left of your screen:

If you don't see the sidebar, click thebutton to expand it. 

Click on any dimension or measure to add it to the report (or to remove it if it's already part of the report). To remove a dimension or measure click its gear icon, and click Remove:

If you want to start over, remove all of the dimensions and measures at once by clicking the gear icon in the upper right-hand corner of the report, and then clicking Remove Fields & Filters:

Pivoting and filtering

To add a dimension to a report, you have the option to filter or pivot that dimension. Clicking Filter will add that dimension to the Filters section of the report. Clicking Pivot will add the dimension to the table as a horizontal metric, so instead of a column of values, you will get a table of values.

In the above example, the Sale Completed Month Name dimension is added normally, while the Sale Completed Year dimension is pivoted. The result is sales by month, year over year.

Custom fields and calculations

In addition to hand-picking the dimensions and measures you want in a report, you can also create custom fields and apply calculations to the data in your table.

To create a custom dimension, custom measure, or table calculation:

1. In the Custom Fields section of the sidebar, click +Add.
2. Select which type of custom field you would like to add.
   
3. When the dialog box opens, name the calculation, and define the custom field using the drop-down menu and the calculation section.
4. To get help with syntax, click the Help + Syntax Reference link at the bottom left of the dialog box.
5. Click Save.

Both custom fields and calculations use a collection of functions and operators and a proper syntax to define what they will do. As mentioned in the above list, a detailed guide on these functions and operators and how to use them can be found here. You can also find detailed examples of how to build calculations on our Community Forums.

Saving and scheduling a report

Once you've completed your custom report, you can save it, and even favorite it, for future use. When saving the report, you'll have the option to make it available to other users on your Analytics account. You can also download the report in a variety of formats or schedule automatic updates of the report. You can learn more about saving and scheduling a report here.

Videos

We have a library of videos with examples of creating reports and how to build them to help get you started.

Customers by single brand

Customers by channel

Dusty valuation

Dynamic reorder points

Finding duplicate customers

Grouping sales totals

Matrix or item

Sales to date: year over year