As of September 5th, 2022, IE 11 will no longer be supported to use with Sonar's reporting module. It is recommended that you switch to an alternative browser, such as Microsoft Edge, Chrome, Firefox, or Safari.
Reports provide useful insights into information such as customer growth, invoiced revenue, delinquencies, etc. With Sonar's Business Intelligence tool, reports are issued in your instance as user-friendly, browser-based dashboards that assist in visualizing the range of data captured. By default, your instance includes stock reports related to Accounts and Financials. With a Report License, you are able to access the advanced features of Sonar's Business Intelligence tool and build custom reports to suit your specific needs.
To read more on Report Licenses and how they can be obtained, click here.
How to Access Reports
To access Reports, navigate to the menu column located to the left side of your instance. Upon clicking "Reports", you'll see a dashboard that reflects each report as a tile.
Selecting a tile will navigate you to a report that displays all data directly related to the subject matter selected. From this display, you have access to further features, such as filtering the results to drill into data, setting up alerts corresponding to certain thresholds, and more.
Role Permissions Required
While the reporting dashboard is accessible to every instance, not all users will be able to access the reports themselves. Reporting is tied to role permissions, thereby allowing you to restrict this dashboard to specific users. To enable, or disable, access you would navigate to Settings -> Roles and as you create or edit a role, you can adjust the permissions as shown below.
To read more about creating roles within your instance, take a look at the articles listed below:
The additional learning tools available to you are highlighted below and are provided in the form of in-app walkthroughs, as well as Sonar, cast videos.
Sonar Cast Videos
There are two Sonar cast videos that can assist you when becoming familiar with Sonar's Business Intelligence reporting - both of them are available below.
Sonar Cast: Navigating the Reports Dashboard
Sonar Cast: How to Create a Report
All of our Sonar cast videos are available from both our Sonar website and our Vimeo page, but can also be accessed directly from within your instance via the Resource Center (found by clicking on the ? in the upper right corner of your instance). For more information on our Resource Center, click here.
In-App Guides
When the Reports page is open in your instance, a new category can be found in the Resource Center titled "In-App Guides". Brief walkthroughs are located here that will provide assistance in becoming familiar with the various functions the Business Intelligence tool can provide in Sonar.
The Resource Center can be found by clicking on the ? in the upper right corner of your instance. For more information on our Resource Center, click here.
Listed below are the available in-app guides related to Sonar's Business Intelligence tool, along with a brief summary of what information the guides cover.
Navigating the Reports Dashboard
This walkthrough outlines the steps used to navigate the dashboard and how to filter the data in an individual report. It also details the options available to download and/or send the data elsewhere.
How to Create a Report
This walkthrough is only available to those that have a Report License on their instance user.
This walkthrough guides you through the creation process for a custom report, as well as how to publish the report and share it with other users of your Sonar instance.
Helpful Reporting Tips
Published dashboards cannot be unpublished at a user level. If changes are required after publication, please reach out to our Support team, and they will submit a request on your behalf.
To mitigate the need for unpublishing a dashboard, check out our section titled How to Share Unpublished Dashboards below.
Downloading Detailed Reports
Every report generated in your Sonar instance can be downloaded for review in external spreadsheet applications. Downloads can be applied two ways:
A whole report download, which will provide the data exactly as displayed in the generated dashboard. This report will only show listings that appear on the page, which means tables will be limited to 500 results.
Download specific sections of the generated report, which can optionally include an unlimited number of results. Each section of the report can be downloaded individually from the 3-dot menu:Once the “Download data” button is clicked, you'll be presented with a new window, allowing you to refine the parameters of your report:
How to Schedule Detailed Reports
Detailed reports include those with an output greater than 500 rows in a CSV file.
Navigate to Reports and open the report dashboard you wish to schedule.
Identify the detail tile you wish to download and then select the 3 dots in the upper-right corner of the tile and select Explore from here.
With the next page populated, click the gear icon and select Save and schedule.
In the new modal, add a title (required) and a description (optional) and then select Save & View Look.
On the next page, hover over the gear icon and select Schedule.
The final modal allows you to customize the delivery of the data:
Where should this data go? allows you to select where the scheduled report should go; if you select Email you'll be prompted to add the intended recipients of the report, if Amazon S3 then you'll add the S3 details, etc.
Format data as provides the option of how the data is reflected; in most cases, a CSV would be most useful.
Deliver this schedule is where you'll configure the repetition of when the report is sent, along with the time of day.
Select Advanced Options and then All Results.
Click on Save All.
How to Check Inventory Count
Navigate to Reports > Inventory.
In the Filters underneath Inventory, click on the operator below Inventory Count and use the dropdown to select is <, then input the number you want to filter by.
Click on the circular blue arrow to the right of the screen and the tiles below will be updated to reflect the relevant data for your query.
How to Set Up Inventory Alerts
Hover your mouse over Inventory By Assignee and click on the bell icon.
The new modal allows you to set the parameters for your alert:
Underneath Condition, use the operators to reflect Is less than and then input the number of your threshold.
Set the email addresses to be alerted below Where to send it.
Use the Frequency and Time to dictate how often you want to be informed of low stock levels.
Click on Save Alert.
You can use the Inventory Reorder report for a similar function by ensuring your inventory items are added with Min/Max values. This can help simplify your inventory level tracking.
How to Clone a Published Report
Before cloning a report from a published dashboard, you'll first want to ensure you have a user dashboard (unpublished) that the cloned report can be saved to. When ready to proceed, please follow the steps below.
Navigate to Reports and click on the applicable dashboard (in our example, we've selected Account Details).
Identify the report (tile) you intend to clone, then hover your mouse cursor over the top right corner of the tile and click on the three dots.
With the menu displayed, click on Explore From Here.
In the newly populated window, click on the settings icon in the top right corner and hover your cursor over Save..., this will then populate a sub-menu where you will select To an existing dashboard.
The next pop-out window titled Add to a Dashboard in this folder is where you'll place the cloned guide. From here, select a title for the report, and then locate the unpublished dashboard. For our example, we'll navigate through My folder > accounts and select from the visible dashboards.
Once complete, click on Save to Dashboard.
Following this, the window should automatically close, and a green banner will display towards the top of the window to reflect confirmation of the changes.
How to Share Unpublished Dashboards
As dashboards cannot be unpublished at a user level, it's beneficial to correspond with other members of your team prior to publication so that you can be sure the data queried, and corresponding filters are correct. The steps below detail how to email an unpublished dashboard.
Navigate to Reports and then click on your unpublished (user) dashboard.
With the dashboard populated, click on the settings icon in the top right corner and select Schedule Delivery.
In the newly populated modal, click the dropdown below Recurrence and select Send Now.
From here, you can customize how the data should be displayed:
Destination allows you to select where the scheduled report should go; if you select Email you'll be prompted to add the intended recipients of the report, if Amazon S3, then you'll add the S3 details, etc. As the intent is to have another party authorize the reports, we're going to proceed as an email for our example.
Email addresses is where you'll add the applicable email recipients.
Format provides the option of how the data is reflected; in most cases, a CSV would be most useful.
If a custom message is necessary to detail what it is you want the recipient to verify, this section can be found by clicking Advanced options.
Once complete, click Send now.
As the dashboard is not yet published, you can continue to edit it how you see fit. Once the data and filters selected have been agreed upon, you can proceed with publishing the report, so other users in your instance can take advantage of the new dashboard.
Creating a Report on Custom Field Data Values
Extracting the data stored in custom fields is an important part of using that feature within Sonar. As there are multiple ways to create a report that will display that data, an article dedicated to this function can be found here | How To Enhance Your Reporting With Custom Field Data.
Updated
by Kristen Fiddes
