Spektrix stores data about all aspects of activity on the system. We provide a range of Standard Reports, empower you to build your own reports, and work with you to create more advanced custom reports.
Where can I find reports?
You can find reports primarily in Insights & Mailings > Report Explorer but also in Sales. If you use Opportunities, you'll find a version of the Report Explorer there as well.
Insights & Mailings
Insights & Mailings is where you run, create, and edit reports. Ensure you have the correct user role permissions in Settings > Users > User Roles—
- To access reports, select the Insights & Mailings User role.
- To edit, create and move reports, select the Insights & Mailings Administrator role.
The Sales Interface
Some reports can also be run from the Sales Interface, either by default or by having been made available individually. You might want to make reports available in the Sales Interface for any users who don’t have access to Insights & Mailings but would benefit from using certain reports.
See the section below on Running reports in the Sales Interface for more information.
Report Explorer
When you go to Insights & Mailings the first page you will see is the Report Explorer, which is where you can:
- Search for and run standard and custom reports
- See when any report was last run in the Date last run column (NOTE: this date reflects when a report was last run in the Report Explorer or as part of a Report Schedule)
- Edit existing reports
- Create new reports
- Create folders and shortcuts to keep your reports organised
Standard and Custom Reports
Each report in Spektrix is either a Standard report or a Custom report, and you can tell which is which by the icon next to each report.
All reports with the blue toolbox icon are Standard reports, which are available to everyone using Spektrix. For more information on the different Standard reports, see this article. If you can’t get the information you need from these standard reports, you might be able to do so using a Custom report.
Reports with a white paper icon are Custom reports which have either been built by someone in your organisation, or built for you by Spektrix.
If you would like a new Custom report you can either build a csv report yourself, or get in touch with the Spektrix Support team to help, or for a report with a template.
Folders and Shortcuts
To keep your reports organised, you can create folders and subfolders. Report Explorer defaults to showing All reports, but you can click on the Shortcuts option to view, edit and create new folders.
- From here, click the New folder button to add a folder - make sure you give it a memorable name.
- You can create as many folders as you need, and each folder can have sub-folders.
- You can rename or delete folders by clicking on the drop-down arrow at the right hand side.
To add a report into a folder, just click on the report and drag it over to the relevant folder. Once you’ve done that, each report will show up in the folder with a blue arrow next to its usual icon - this denotes that it’s a shortcut.
NOTE: deleting a shortcut from a folder will not delete the report from your system.
How do reports work?
To understand how to run reports in Spektrix, you first need to understand how they work. There are two main areas to be aware of here - the Criteria Set and the Output type.
Criteria Sets
Criteria sets are what you use to determine the data that you’re going to include in the report you’re running.
For example, if you’re running a financial report to see the total number and value of tickets sold in January, you want to make sure the report only looks at tickets (and doesn’t include merchandise, for example) and only looks at sales made in that date range. So your criteria set in that case should be:
- Tickets where Date Transaction Confirmed is between 01 January 2016 and 31 January 2016.
If you wanted to look at the value of all items sold in that time period, you would change the criteria set to look for Orders, as that includes everything and not just tickets.
If you instead wanted to only look at the sales for a specific event, you would narrow things down even further by adding Event into your criteria set. For example:
- Orders where Event is Macbeth and Date Transaction Confirmed is between 01 January 2016 and 31 January 2016.
The choice of criteria set is really important, as it determines the data that’s going to be used in your report. You could run exactly the same report using two different criteria sets and get different figures out - the format of the report won’t change (i.e. it will still have the same columns and formatting) but the data would be different.
Output Types
You can output reports in different ways depending on what you want to do with the data.
The first two options listed here are only available on reports which have been built with visual templates, which can only be done by the Spektrix Support team. All Standard reports have templates, along with some Custom reports.
- Run as PDF will output the report as a PDF document, which can’t be edited further.
- Run as Excel outputs the report in an Excel spreadsheet using the template of the PDF document. This is handy if you want to do calculations in Excel that aren’t included in the report.
The remaining options are always available, and will display the data using the output columns and sorting options set up in each report.
- Run as CSV will output the report’s basic data, which is handy if you’d like to do your own filtering.
- Run as Excel (unformatted.xls) and Run as Excel (unformatted.xlsx) are essentially the same as running the report as a CSV.
- Run as Raw (XML) is an output used if you were sending the data to be manipulated by another application, which you’re unlikely to need.
How do I run a report?
You can search for reports by typing in the search bar. As you type, the list of visible reports will shrink to show all the possible options based on what you’ve entered.
- Once you’ve found the report you need, click the cross icon next to the report to see a list of all available criteria sets.
- From here, choose which criteria set you want to use by clicking the green play button to open the report up and see the available options for that criteria set.
- If you can’t find a suitable criteria set you can create a new one by clicking the New criteria set button.
- Each criteria set will have different options, allowing you to choose Events, Instances, dates or various other things.
- Once you’ve chosen all of the relevant options, choose how you want to output the report. If the report has a template then it will default to Run as PDF, otherwise it will default to Run as Excel (unformatted).
One of the great things about reports is that you can carry on working while reports are generating - you don’t have to wait while they run. While they’re generating, the names of each report you’re running will appear in the top right corner of your screen.
Depending on your internet browser, either they will remain there once completed until you’re ready to download them, or your browser will prompt you to save them once they’re ready.
Date ranges in criteria sets
When using any date criteria, you will see a range of options available. Most of these are self explanatory, such as Last month or Yesterday, but there is also an option for Relative Date Range which allows you to set more flexible start and end dates.
This option gives you additional flexibility, allowing you to set relative dates such as the number of days in the past or in the future. It works by allowing you to specify dates between two points in time.
These points can each be set to one of a range of options, either fixed points or customisable dates.
- First recorded date: the first date which has data within Spektrix (i.e. the date of the first sale in Spektrix, or the earliest sale imported from your old system).
- End of time: the latest date which has any data in your system. This will update in real time, so will change over time.
- Days ago: a number of days in the past.
- Today: this will update dynamically.
- Days in the future: a number of days in the future.
Both the days ago and days in the future options allow you to specify the number of days.
NOTE: the option for Fixed date range was previously called Custom date range, but this still allows you to specify a specific start and end date.
There’s also help text underneath the chosen date period (for all options) which shows the date range in question, which for non-relative date ranges will be the exact date range.
Frequently running the same reports?
If you find yourself always coming back to run the same reports, remember that you can set up Report Schedules to either send them automatically or allow other users to run them on demand. For more information, see our Report Schedules article.
Running reports in the Sales Interface
There are two places where you can run reports in the Sales Interface - the Events section and the Other > Reports section.
Events
There are various reports automatically available in the Events section - different reports are available depending on where exactly you are.
From the Event Search page you can click on the Reports drop-down at the bottom-left of the page to run these reports:
- Sales Report
- Sales Conflicts Report
From the seating plan of any Instance you will see a similar menu, although here it includes two further reports - the Occupancy Report and the Sales History Report.
Other > Reports
By default this section is blank, as it’s up to you to add reports into here. You can add in as many reports as you like, and each one will show up with the same criteria set as if you were running it in Insights & Mailings.
The different criteria sets are listed slightly differently however - if a report has more than one criteria set, the Run button will have a drop-down menu where you can choose which criteria set to use.
Once you’ve selected a criteria set, the rest of the process is exactly the same as running a report in Insights & Mailings.
Adding reports
You can only add Custom reports into the Sales Interface. If you want to add a Standard report, you need to make a copy of the report first.
To make a report available in the Sales Interface, first click the plus button next to the report to show the criteria sets, then click the Edit report button.
From there you just need to tick the Make available in sales interface? option.
You can also tick the padlock icon to lock that report so that it can only be run by users with the Sales Administrator role.
***
If you have any further questions about how to run reports, please get in touch with the Spektrix Support team who will be able to help.