So you've diligently input all of your data into Church Metrics, and now you want to see it in action! Running reports is a great way to review and display your data- You can customize your reports to show exactly what information would be helpful to you. You can even schedule your reports to be automatically emailed to you!
In this article, we will cover how to create a new report. Note that in order to create a new report, you must have the Manage Organization Settings permission. If you do not have this permission, you'll need to reach out to an administrator on your account.
How to create a new Report
From the profile dropdown in the top right corner, select Admin. Then click Reports in the left hand navigation.
Click Create Report in the top right hand corner.
Enter a name for your Report. Then click + Add Category to begin building your Report.
How to build your Report
You can set up your Report to display any number of Categories. You can report on Parent Categories or Categories within the Parents, or even sum up different Categories to create custom calculations.
Each time you click + Add Category, a new line will be added to your Report. You can select which Category you would like to track in your Report. In this case, we will select the Parent Category "Total_Attendance," which is automatically summing up the attendance in our 2 auditoriums, as well as the kids attendance.
Next we will choose what type of data we are looking for. Actual will show the exact numbers we input for this Category. Projected will show any Projections we have input in our account. And Variance will show the change in the reported attendance. You can select any combination of these options, and each will display on its own line in the Report.
From here, you can continue adding any number of Categories you'd like. Each will get its own line. You can add Parent Categories, or just single Categories underneath the Parents if you want your reporting to be more granular.
If you click + Add Category with Calculation, you can create custom calculations to report on very specific data. For example, maybe I want to know my volunteer to attendee ratio at my services. I can take my Category for Total Attendance and divide it by the Volunteer Category, and name it "Ratio."
Once you have all of the Categories and any calculations you'd like built in your report, you'll need to configure the options on the right side of the screen.
If you'd like the Report to account for a specific Event, select it from the dropdown. If no Event is selected, the Report will simply apply to data input for normal Service Times.
You can group your data by day, week, or month in your Report.
Selecting the Group by Campus or Group by Service Time boxes will change how your report is displayed. This will let you see the data totaled up for each Campus (if your church has more than one) or for each Service Time. If you leave both boxes unchecked, your report will simple give total amounts for each Category within the timeframe you select when you run the report.
Using the Advanced Editor
We have just covered the basic way to set up a new Report. If you are looking for more custom data like averages, or adding design elements, the Advanced Editor allows you to do powerful customizations to your Reports. The reporting here does require knowledge of the Liquid Templating Language, and so isn't as easily accessible and usable as the built-in tools we have just covered.
At this time, the Church Metrics team does not have capacity to give training or coaching in using the Advanced Editor. However, if someone on your team has the coding knowledge required to use this powerful tool, they can check out this article for more information in getting started.