Build a custom report

What this achieves

A custom report is a question you save so you never have to reassemble it. You choose what it reports on, narrow it, pick the columns, and give it a name — after which it can be run, scheduled, and shared.

Required role: Administrator.

Steps

Go to Settings → Reports.
Select New report.
Under Choose a report type, pick the type, then select Next.
On Filters, select Add filter for each condition, then select Next.
On Columns & sorting, list the Columns (comma separated), set Sort by, Sort order, and Group by, then select Next.
On Save report, enter the Report name, a Description, and the Default visualization.
Select Save report.

The eight report types

The type decides what the report reports on. It is the one choice you cannot change afterwards.

Option	Description
Skills Inventory	Skills across your organization with proficiency levels.
Competency Gaps	Gaps between required and available competencies.
Learning Analytics	Learning activity, completions, and outcomes.
Mobility Pipeline	Internal mobility opportunities and applicants.
Readiness Matrix	Employee readiness for new roles or assignments.
Feedback Analysis	Feedback responses and sentiment trends.
Workforce Planning	Workforce needs and capacity.
Custom	Built from scratch.

Example: HC Corp’s quarterly capability pack is a Skills Inventory report filtered to Engineering. The same question asked about readiness is a second report, not a filter on the first, because the type is fixed at creation.

Filters

Filters narrow which records the report includes. Each filter names a field and the value to match on.

Add filters deliberately and keep them few. A report with several filters is a report you will not remember the shape of in three months, and the description field is where you should record why they are there.

Example: a Skills Inventory report for HC Corp filtered to one department answers a departmental question. Without the filter it answers a company one, and both are worth saving separately rather than editing back and forth.

Columns and sorting

Option	Description
Columns (comma separated)	The fields the report outputs, listed with commas between them.
Sort by	The field the rows are ordered on.
Sort order	Default, Ascending, or Descending.
Group by	The field rows are grouped under.

Columns are typed as a list rather than chosen from a picker, so a mistyped field name is the usual reason a column comes back empty. Check a report’s first run against what you expected before you schedule it or share it.

Naming and visualization

Option	Description
Report name	What the report is called in the list.
Description	What it is for. This is the only place the report’s purpose is recorded.
Default visualization	Table, Bar chart, Line chart, Pie chart, Heatmap, or Scatter plot.

Name reports so somebody else can find them. A list of reports called “Skills report” and “Skills report 2” is a list nobody trusts, and the description is what stops that happening.

Example: Q3 skills inventory — Engineering with a description naming who asked for it and why beats Skills by a distance a year later.

What can be changed afterwards

Editing a saved report covers its Name, Description, and Columns. Its filters, its sort, and its visualization cannot be changed after it is created — changing those means creating a new report.

That is worth knowing before you build. Get the type and the filters right at creation, because those are the expensive parts to correct.

The report list

The list carries three tabs — all reports, those shared with you, and those on a schedule — with counts on each. The columns show the report’s name, type, description, visualization, whether it is scheduled, whether it is shared, when it last ran, and when it was created.

Select a row to open the report and run it.

What happens next

A saved report does nothing until you run it. Running produces output in a format you choose, keeps a record of the run, and can be put on a schedule so a recurring question answers itself.