The Report Writer in version 6 is completely redesigned with many new features. Please note that because this was redesigned from the ground up there is no way to transfer old saved reports to the new Report Writer. Instead you will need to re-save them in the new version.

There is also a new Report Writer that can now be used inside of a site, for your customers (with permission) to create and manage on their own.

Some important notes on the new reports:

The longest time frame for a report is one year of data. This is true for one time reports as well as any report that is run automatically. To get more than one year you will need to run a second report with a different date range.

Admin Groups:

Found under Admin > Preferences > Admin Groups.

Can manage reports: If you want the admin user to be able to both view and edit the reports select “Allowed”. They will have access to all reports created even if they do not have permission to see a particular site. If you want an admin user to only manage reports for particular sites, you should add them as a "site" user and give them permission to manage reports on the site level. They can do that through their own storefront access.

Can view reports: If you want the user to only be able to view the reports but not edit or create them, select “Allowed” under Can view reports and “Not set” under “Can manage reports”. When reports are created the admin user who created the report will be able to limit access to other admin users by the allowed group that they are a member of.

Site Groups:

Found under Admin > Site > Site Groups. The options are the same for the Admin Group but are being applied to the site users instead of the admin users.

Navigation:

Found under Admin > Site > Navigation. There is now a new option under Standard Items called “Reports” this is a link to the reports page just for that site. Drag it over to the Menu you would like to add it to and click Save. Note: Only users that can either manage or view reports have the ability to see the link.

Creating a new Report:

The first tab you will be on is the Report Settings tab.Here you’ll need to fill out the Report Name, Report Frequency. The final date selections are determined by the Report Frequency selected.

Note: Report Frequency of Weekly, Monthly, Annually are only for Professional and Enterprise accounts only.

• One Time: Select a Start Date and End Date once this report is saved it will not be automatically run again. You can edit it at anytime and save again to run a different report.
• Weekly: Select Days to Query and Execute Every. The days to Query is how many days prior to the report being executed it will include. Execute Every you choose which day of the week the report will execute. For example if choose 30 Days to Query and Execute Every Sunday, each Sunday you will have a new report of the previous month.
• Monthly: Select Days to Query and Execute Every. The days to Query works the same as the Weekly report. The Execute Every you are Choosing between 1 and 31 for the day of the month. If you choose 31 and the month has less than 31 days the report will execute on the last day of the month.
• Annually:  Select Days to Query and Execute Every. The days to Query works the same as the Weekly and Monthly reports. Execute Every you select the month the report will run.

Report Structure:

The information seen in the Report Structure while coming from your account is not actually your report. Rather it is just for designing the report, the actual report will be downloaded later.

You can scroll to the right to see all the columns selected by default. To Add/Remove any columns click the down arrow to the right of any existing column then highlight Columns. Place a check mark next to any column you would like to add and remove a check mark next to any column you wish to remove. The new columns will be added to the end of the columns shown.

To order the columns how you want drag and drop them into the order you want. To sort the data you can either click on a column heading to switch between Ascending and Descending order or you can the Down Arrow on the column header and choose Ascending or Descending.

To Filter by specific content in a column click the down arrow and then choose Filter. Each column can have two filters at a time. Set the filter and then click the Filter button.

Finally you can set the Grouping. This will group each section of data by columns added, in the order they were added. For example you might want to place Site Name, then Order Month. This will group all the orders on the report by the Site, then each month under each of the sites.

Allowed Groups tab:

The Allowed Groups tab lets you choose which groups will be able to view and download this report. Check off all of the groups you would like to have access to the report. If the report is being created in Admin, then you will see a list of other Admin Groups you can share this report with. If the report is being created in a storefront by your customer, then they will be able to share their report with other Site Group users. Reports in Admin are not available to Site Users and vise versa.

Selected Sites tab:

This tab allows you to choose which of your sites the report will pull data from. You can quickly choose the sites by using the buttons at the top for Select All, Select None, or Reverse Selection (if you check 1 site and then click this all sites but that site will then be selected).

Saving the Report Settings and Running the Report:

Once you have set all the options to your liking click on Run Report at the bottom of the Report Settings tab.

This will both save the settings for a report that will be automatically run in the future as well as run the report right then. So if you have a report set to run every Sunday but you create it on a Tuesday the first version of the report you see will reflect the data generated on that Tuesday. From then on though the report will be run on Sunday and reflect the data on a Sunday.

After the report has been saved you will be brought to the Report Writer page with a list of all your save reports. The reports will listed by their Report Name, then show you the Last Report Date, Last Report Status and the Download Link. To download the report just click on the Download button.

If you wish to update the report click on the pencil icon to edit the report. When you do this you will also notice a new tab, Report Data. This tab will also contain a download link, it is the same link seen on the main Report Writer page.