Which date settings to use for automatic reports
When creating, or editing, automatic reports, you have the same options for the date range as you do when you look at your data under "Browse results". However, for the automatic reports, you also need to consider the delivery settings as they will influence how the date range for the report is interpreted by the system.
Let's start with the delivery settings.
Delivery settings
For the delivery, you select a frequency (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly). Then, you select the start date. The start date will influence all other delivery dates too.
For example, if you have selected monthly delivery and a start day the 1st of the next month, you will receive the report the 1st of every month. If you selected the 15th, you will receive the report on the 15th of every month.
This matters for the report date range, as the date settings are based on calendar days, months, and so on. So let's look at the report date range.
Report date range
For reports, the most useful date range is "Last" and then however many of whatever you want, for example "Last 30 days", which is the default setting.
"This" is generally not useful in reports as "This month" will be the month the report is delivered. If the delivery date is the 15th and the date range is "This month", the report will only contain two weeks of data as "This month" is this calendar month and not the past 30 days.
"Custom dates" and "Custom weeks" are also not useful in automatic reports as they would generate the same data every report. The dates or weeks will not adapt to the days passing. Custom dates or weeks are only useful for one-time reports, but in that case you can also download all the charts to create your own report instead of adding them to an automatic report.
For those reasons, we recommend that you use "Last" for your automatic reports.
If your report is delivered on the 1st of every month, is doesn't matter if you use "Last 30 days" or "Last 1 month" as they will include approximately the same days ("Last 1 month" will vary between 28-31 days while "Last 30 days" will always be 30 days). However, if it is delivered on the 15th, "Last 1 month" will have a two week gap between the date range and the delivery date. That is not necessarily a problem but something to consider.
For quarterly reports, using "Last 1 quarter" will give data from the last calendar quarter, which is Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun, Jul-Sep, and Oct-Dec. That setting is suitable if the report is being delivered in the first few days of the next quarter, but if you have a quarterly reports and don't follow the calendar quarters, "Last 3 months" is probably a better setting for you.
Trend charts
For trend charts, you usually want the last year or more. Let's say last year for this example. Again, the date range is based on calendar months, years and so on. That means that the setting "Last 1 year" will be the last calendar year, not the last 12 months. Even if the report is delivered in Dec 2023, if the date range for the trend chart is "Last 1 year", the trend will only contain data from 2022, as that is the last full year.
For trend charts, the best setting is usually "Last 12 months", or whatever time period you want. It can also be made more precise by using days or weeks instead.
Summary
The date settings for an automatic report can be a bit complicated, but here is a summary of our recommended settings:
- Use the same frequency for the date range as for the delivery (1 month of data for monthly reports, 3 months for quarterly, and so on)
- For monthly reports, use "Last 30 days" or "Last 1 month"
- For quarterly reports, use "Last 3 months"
- For yearly reports, use "Last 12 months"
- For trend charts, use "Last 12 months" (or a longer period is that is of interest)
- For more precision, use "Last X weeks" or "Last X days"
