How to Create and Use Reports in MSPbots

MSPbots offers a reporting feature that enables you to generate reports for sharing with teammates and leaders of your organization. These reports facilitate data-driven decision-making and aid in monitoring your company or team's performance against key metrics. Use this page to guide you in creating and configuring reports that deliver relevant information to specific individuals based on a predefined schedule. 

If you want to create dashboards for presentation and streaming on devices, see How to Create and Use Dashboards in MSPbots. 

What are the benefits of using MSPbots reports?

Leaders rely on reports to communicate important information to clients and their teams. The MSPbots app allows you to create and send printable reports that summarize historical data, metrics, and trends that can be used for decision-making, problem diagnosis, capacity planning, and performance improvement. You can share these reports externally with clients or internally with teams via link or PDF format according to a reporting schedule. 

Relevant applications and permissions 

• You can set up reports for all MSPbots apps, BI packages, and applicable integrations.
• Only users with admin permissions can create reports.
• If you don't have enough permissions, contact your administrator for help. 

How to create a report 

Do the following to set up your report: 

1. Log in to MSPbots app as an admin.
2. Navigate to Reports on the menu and click the New Report button. 
   
   
   
   
3. When the Add New Report window opens, do the following:
   1. Enter your report's name in the Name field. 
   2. Click the Role dropdown menu and select the roles that will access the report. 
   3. Click the Tag dropdown menu and select one or multiple tags to label your new report. 
   4. Next, provide a Description for your report.  
   5. Click Continue. This opens the tab for your new report. 
      
      
      
      
4. When the tab for your new report opens, click Add Widget. This opens the Add Widget window. 
   
   
   
   
5. Next, click Widgets List and select the widgets to show in your report. 
   
   Do not select more than 218 widgets; exceeding the limit of 218 can lead to slow loading times and occasional crashes.
   
   
   _{*The assets in the image are for demonstration only.}
   
   You can also click New to create new widgets to add to your report or click Slicer List to add slicers, refer to How to Add a Slicer to the Dashboard.
   
   
6. Click the Add Selected button after selecting widgets and slicers for your report. The widgets will appear in the new report. 
7. Optional: You can also modify the following as needed:
   • Size - Click the Size dropdown menu and select A4 or letter.  
     
     
     
     
   • Orientation - Click the Orientation dropdown menu and select portrait or landscape. 
     
     
     
     
   • Background Color - Select a color from the palette to apply it to your report's background. 
     
     
     
     
   • Hide Separator Line - Enable the switch to hide the separator lines in your report's layout. 
     
     
     
     
   • Show Slicers in Exported PDF - Slicers are included in exported PDF reports by default. To hide one or more slicers, toggle the switch for each. 
     
     
     
     
8. Click Save Report to save the settings. 
   
   
   
   
   • If the Too many widgets popup appears after clicking the Save Report button, go back to Step 4 to uncheck some widgets to reduce the number of Selected widgets to 218 in order to stay within the limit of 218.
     
     
     
     
   • The new report will appear under My Reports.
     
     
     
     

What other actions can I do on my report's page?  

• Adjust the settings - Click the    button to modify the widget settings and to adjust the report's size, and orientation. 
  
• Edit the report's basic information when you click the    icon.
• Refresh the data in your report
  • Click   the refresh icon to refresh all data in the report.
  • Hover over   the refresh icon to open the auto-refresh settings popup.
    
    
    
    
    • Automatic refresh is disabled by default.
    • Click on Enable automatic refresh to start automatic refresh and set your preferred refresh interval.
    • Once set, the report will automatically refresh according to your chosen interval.
    • The reports will continue to apply the refresh settings even when the tabs are minimized.
      
      
       

      Widget Auto-refresh Rule

      The following rules apply once the auto-refresh feature is enabled and the refresh interval is set:

      • The report will automatically refresh upon opening based on the set auto-refresh interval. When the report is closed, the automatic page refresh will stop.

      • If the current time upon opening the report is less than the last refresh time plus the auto-refresh interval, the report will not refresh. Once the set interval is reached, the report will refresh automatically.

        For example: With an auto-refresh interval set to 5 minutes and the last refresh time at 9:00. If you visit the report at 9:02, earlier than 9:00 plus the 5-minute refresh setting, the report will not refresh. If you stay on the page until 9:05, the report will automatically refresh at 9:05. However, if you leave the page before 9:05, the last refresh time will remain as 9:00.
        

      • If the current time upon opening the report is equal to or later than the last refresh time plus the auto-refresh interval, the page will automatically refresh, starting a new countdown from the current time.

        For instance: With an auto-refresh interval set to 5 minutes and the last refresh time at 9:00, and the report has been closed since then. When you access the report at 9:08, it will automatically refresh once, starting a new automatic refresh countdown from 9:08 with the interval remaining at 5 minutes.

• Share your report - Click    to share the report via shareable link and embedding.
  
  
  
  For more information on sharing your report; refer to the following pages:
  • How to Share a Report Using the Shareable Link Function
  • How to Share A Report Using the Embed Function (HTML)
• Delete your report by clicking the    icon.
  
  
  
  
• Create a schedule for sending your report. Click the Schedule Report    icon for this. Refer to How to Create Scheduled Reporting for Dashboards and Reports for guided instructions.
• Export a PDF copy of your report. - Click the   icon to export the report in PDF format.
  
  
  
  
  • When the page displays {Asset name} exported successfully, it means the PDF file has been exported successfully and will be automatically downloaded. You can check the downloaded file in the Downloads folder of your browser. 
    
    
    
    
  • If the report contains a slicer with the QueryParams="Company", the exported PDF filename includes the company name obtained from the slicer with QueryParams="Company". For example, a report with the slicer Company slicer=mspbots will include the company name mspbots in the exported PDF filename. 
    
    
    
  • If the report does not contain a slicer with the QueryParams="Company", the exported PDF file name does not display the company name. 
    
• Add the report to My Favorites - Click the   button in the upper right corner to add the report to My Favorites.
  
  
  
  
  • When   changes to  , it means the addition was successful.
  • After that, you can find the report in the My Favorites tab.
    
    
     
  • If you want to remove it from My Favorites, click   to change it to  .