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ANALYTICS BEST PRACTICES

Organize your Analytics directory structure in a meaningful way and communicate the
structure to your staff. Ensure all staff members who need access to specific reports can get to
them effectively and quickly, and verify the permissions are set correctly. Remove duplicate
reports if possible. Create a “drafts” folder where staff members can temporarily store and share
their report drafts. This process requires very little work upfront and can save a significant amount
of confusion and effort later as the number of your reports grows.

Utilize the scheduling feature in Analytics. The scheduling feature in Analytics can help
reduce your administrative overhead. Using this functionality, you can create one or multiple
schedules for any report in the system and have the reports sent to any staff member at any
designated date and time (i.e. a dashboard report for management each Monday morning at 7am).
You can also specify the report format, and implement data alerts if a value within a report reaches
a certain level; for example, if the number of incidents created in a day exceeds 100, the report
will automatically send with an alert notice.

Combine like reports into report dashboards. If you have reports that capture related
information, it might be beneficial to combine them into a dashboard. This feature is particularly
useful because staff members only need to run one report rather than multiple reports to get the
same information.

Become familiar with the RNT standard reports. The standard, out-of-the-box reports that
come with the Analytics module can provide much of the information clients look for in measuring
their business, processes, staffing, etc. Furthermore, if a standard report does not meet your
reporting requirements, it is often advantageous to copy and modify a standard report containing
similar information.

Become familiar with relational database concepts and the RNT data schema. You will
have a significant advantage in understanding Analytics and how the data is structured if you are
familiar with relational database concepts. Please refer to the Analytics manual as well as Answer
ID# 1350 to access more Analytics documentation covering this information.

When creating custom reports:
o
Use common date range filters. Using common date range filters allows you to compare
different report data across the same window of time for a more meaningful measurement.
Using date filters also limits the amount of information returned in a report, therefore
enabling it to run more quickly and efficiently.
o
Take the time to map your report requirements. Mapping your report requirements is
an effective way of ensuring you are correctly capturing the data you want to see in the
report. It is helpful to list the tables that contain the data you will need, any filters you wish
to use to narrow your results, grouping functionality, ordering specifics, etc.
o
Include only pertinent functionality within your report. Eliminate any redundant or
unnecessary data, columns, filters, table instances, etc. from your report. This will only add
confusion as well as potentially take longer to run the report.
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ANALYTICS BEST PRACTICES
o
Ensure design integrity is intact. Proper use of filters, table joins (inner vs. outer), etc.
is critical in determining what results your report will show. For example, if you joined the
contacts table to the incidents table and used an outer join, all incidents would be returned
regardless if they had contacts associated with them. However, if you used an inner join in
this scenario, only those incidents with contacts associated with them would be returned.
Therefore, the resulting data set can be vastly different simply due to a join type.
o
Add or remove items (i.e. output columns, filters, etc.) one at a time. This is a very
useful strategy when creating reports, as well as testing the data. If the results are not
what you anticipated after you add/remove something, you know what the issue is
immediately and can address it.
o
Use grouping functionality to combine like data. Grouping allows you to combine
records with similar data into one group in a report. This often makes the report more
readable, as well as more versatile (grouping enables drilldown functionality to be used, for
example).
o
Use ordering functionality to organize your report data. Ordering allows you to sort
your report output by database columns and specify ascending or descending order.
Ordering is useful in making your report more readable and organized (i.e. alphabetizing
names, ordering numeric values from largest to smallest, etc.).
o
Title your report appropriately and utilize description fields. Giving your report a
title that appropriately reflects the purpose of the report and the data in it allows others to
quickly find what they are looking for within the reports directory. Documenting the column
descriptions and report description also provides useful information for others using the
report (you can also display this information in the report itself for further visibility).
o
Ensure you are using the same format, style sheet, fonts, etc. for all reports.
Consistent formatting makes your reports both more readable and visually appealing.
o
Utilize Drilldown level and (in RightNow May '09 and up) Report linking to
effectively view both the high level and detailed data.
o

Queue large reports (in RightNow May '09 and up) based on historical data, this will allow
you to run the report on more data and to keep a copy of the report available after it has
been run.
Custom Scripting
o
If at all possible, run all database queries via an ODBC connection.
o
Make a copy of the report you wish to add a custom script to, so you can compare
the two reports and ensure they are returning the correct data. This is also a useful
way to test your report.
o
Custom scripts are either functional or non-functional – there is no way to
troubleshoot them; therefore, it is useful to use a PHP/SQL script editor to test
your code prior to entering it in the report if possible.
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