Lightspeed Analytics offers many commonly used built-in reports, but it also helps you to design your own custom reports to suit your specific needs. Start with one of the existing reports and customize it, or you can start with a blank template and build your custom report from scratch (advanced).

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.

Creating a custom report

First, 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. To find how many items have a stock quantity of fewer than five, 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.

1. In Analytics, navigate to Reports from the main menu.
2. Select the Create custom report dropdown 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. 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 want 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 the Share with entire company box to make your new report available to other users on your Analytics account.
9. Click Save As New Report in the top right.

Adding or removing dimensions and measures

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 the sidebar isn't displayed, click the > (arrow) to expand it.

Click 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 the gear icon beside it, 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, then click Remove Fields & Filters.

As you add and remove dimensions and measures, the data table will not automatically update with new data. Once you are done making changes, click Run to recalculate the table based on the new metrics you've defined.

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.

Custom fields are custom dimensions and custom measures specific to Lightspeed Analytics, and are different from the custom fields in Retail POS.

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 want to add.

   

3. When the dialog box opens, name the calculation and define the custom field using the dropdown 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.

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.

What's next?