Rock U - Reporting - Reports - Reporting Strategy

Transcribed Video Content

So let's talk about reporting strategy first before we dive into the details. And it's really important that you understand this because we built rocks reporting tools around this strategy in helping you create an organized reporting structure. Because if you don't, over time your reports will turn into this garbage pit. And so what happens in traditional systems is you're out there and you're making reports just as you need them and you're constantly recreating the wheel in those reports. And so what happens over time is you'll start having hundreds of these reports and they're all reporting what seems to be the same thing conceptually but in reality it's very different because the filter criterias are just slightly different. And when something changes in your organization over time, maybe a key, distinguishing characteristic of what is a member, maybe that changes. You now have hundreds of reports all over the place that all need to be updated that honestly probably won't get updated. And so we really kind of thought about this trash pile and just from experience honestly and thought, how can we get rid of this and how can we bring organization and strategy into the play with reporting to help keep, your environments from looking this in the future. So let's look at how we do that. To do that, we're what we're gonna do is we're gonna break apart the process of reporting into two different steps. So step one is what we call data views. And what they do is they filter down the rows that you will be presenting and reporting on. So think of this as the filtration part of reporting. So it's gonna go through and take all the rows in the database and start limiting it down to just the rows that you're interested in. Okay. So once you have data views done, then we're gonna add reports on top of that. And so you can think of reports as adding columns to those limited rows that you filtered. Okay. So data views filter the number of rows and then reports add columns to those rows. Okay. If you think about those two key concepts, and and boiling it down to what when you try to create a report, what you're really trying to do, it'll make a lot more sense. So when we think strategic and unstructured reporting, here's what we're really talking about. What we want you to do in in the in the concept to think about is that these data views are gonna kind of build on each other. Okay? So for instance, this first data view here might be one of your foundational data views That might say something this was all what we consider to be members and attendees. So that could be looking at certain, connection statuses, definitely looking at, record statuses, only showing active records and it and whatever criteria it means to be a member for you. Based on that, you can then build data views on top of that. So, in these data views it might be , male members and attendees. Now, this data view here, you're not gonna recreate, the wheel. You're not gonna recreate what it is to be a member and attendee. Instead, what you're gonna do is just build upon that. So you're just gonna add a filter gender equals male and maybe this one's gender equals female. And then as you keep building on top of those, you'll continue adding maybe ages. So these are, adult males between the ages of 18 and 25, maybe one below that is 20, six to 40 and and so forth. But again, you're never redefining what it is to be a member and attendee. That's way down here in this foundational data view. Now, what happens in the future and I know this probably never happens in your organization but it happens in a lot is that what that criteria to be a member and attendee changes. And so in this case, just change it in one place and all of these data views, naturally just inherit that change. Then once you get your data views, complete, then you'll build your reports off the top of that. Okay? So again, these are just different views of those rows, adding different columns based on what you're looking for. And as you can see, in this use case here, there's actually three different reports all pointing at the same data view. So, for whatever you're trying to report on, you're adding different columns. Okay? And you might secure those reports differently so that the filtration, the data views are are the same but through the security and the rows and the columns that you're that you're looking at are all different. So this takes time. You have to kind of plan ahead to do this and, it's an investment. But it's an investment that pays dividends in the future. So your future self will highly appreciate the fact that you took the time to do this. So the key point here is again reiterating that if you do this right, you don't have to redefine what it is that, for these key metrics what is a member and attendee. You don't have to redefine that and you can change it all in one place and it changes it globally. So reports are basically again adding the columns to those data views. So that's what's gonna give you the information that each person is looking for. But again, by putting those data views incorrectly, you can have multiple reports based off of those data views. So you really have to decide right now what strategy you're gonna take because you have to start now. If you start later, you're gonna have a a specific need and you're gonna be jumping to fill that need. You have to start now to determine who you're gonna be. So if you remember back to the seventies sitcom, The Odd Couple, there are two two guys who, two friends who live together. One was very organized and and neat and the other one was very messy And so this is really the call to action that you have to determine which one are you gonna be. Are you gonna be Oscar or you're gonna be Felix? So, again, this is a strategic thing you have to consider ahead of time. You can't wait till you have a need in reporting. And the more you can bring maybe a small small team together to determine what your foundational views are gonna be and how you're gonna structure those, the the better off you're gonna be in the future. So that's reporting at a very high level and we'll drill down next into data views and reports and how you make those.