Custom Dashboards and Custom Reports help you simplify the reporting process and improve
your analytics workflow.
A custom report simply allows you to customize the metrics and dimensions you see in a Google
Analytics report.
Custom Reports are powerful because you can create a report that contains all of the data
identified in your measurement plan.
Dashboards also offer a quick and easy way to get a high level view of your critical
metrics and segments in one place.
In this less you will learn:
How to create a custom report
How to create a custom dashboard and
How to share your customizations with coworkers
Let's start by taking a look at Custom Reports.
A custom report is a report that you create by picking specific dimensions and metrics
and deciding how they should be displayed.
To access your custom reports, click the Customization tab.
Your reports will be listed in the left navigation under Custom Reports.
If no custom reports have been created, you will only see an entry for Overview under
Custom Reports.
To create a custom report, click + New Custom Report button.
First, provide a descriptive name for the report so that you can easily identify it.
Let's create a report called Saturday Conversions Report.
Then, choose the report type you want to create.
The Explorer type shows a hierarchy of data tables linked by clickable rows with an over
time graph at the top.
The Flat table shows a single table with all of your data.
The Geo type is similar to the Explorer type, but uses a geographic visualization instead
of the over time graph.
Regardless of which report type you choose, you'll need to specify at least one dimension
and one metric in your report.
To add each metric to your report, click the "add metric" button.
If you are adding several metrics to your custom report, you can create and name metric
groups to keep your report organized.
For this example, let's call the metric group "Conversions" and add the metrics "Visits,"
"Goal 1 Completions" and "Goal 1 Conversion Rate".
Next, click the button to add each dimension to your report.
In the Explorer and Geo types of custom reports, adding more than one dimension in a hierarchy
makes it possible for the person viewing the report to drill down into more specific data.
In the Flat Table type, you can add up to two dimensions side-by-side in the report.
For this report, we'll add "Day of Week" as our first dimension.
Let's also add "Hour" as a sub dimension of day.
Keep in mind that some metrics and dimensions can't be paired in a custom report.
For more details, refer to the resources in this lesson.
Next, decide if you want to add a filter to limit the report to a subset of data.
Select a dimension, select include or exclude, select the match type you want and then enter
the value for the match.
Since this report is just meant to include data for Saturdays, we can create a filter
to only show visits that happened on a Saturday.
Finally, if you want the report to be available in different views, other than the one you
create the report in, select them from the menu.
Once you're finished, save the report.
As you can see, the resulting reports looks just like the pre-created reports in the Reporting
section of Google Analytics.
All of the report tools like the date range selector, the table filter and the secondary
dimension option are available for you to use on the custom report.
Notice that the metric group at the top of the report is now customized to read "Conversions."
The dimensions and the metrics in the table are the ones that we selected, and the filter
we applied in the Custom Report settings has included only Saturday, not the other days
of the week.
If we click into Saturday, we're taken to the hourly breakdown of the conversion data
for Saturdays only.
To manage your existing custom reports, return to the Custom Reports Overview page.
From here, you can choose to edit, copy, share or delete your custom reports.
If you choose to share the custom report, Google Analytics will generate a URL that
you can copy and send to other users or host in a document or on a site.
Note that when you share a custom report via a template, you share only the settings for
the custom report -- you do not share any data.
You can send the link to anyone with an Analytics account, and that person can then import the
settings.
Now, let's take a look at Dashboards.
Dashboards give you an overview of how your properties are performing by displaying summaries
of different reports as widgets on a single page.
With a dashboard, you can monitor many metrics at once, so you can quickly check the health
of your accounts or see correlations between different reports.
To view and manage your dashboards, use the Dashboards menu in the Reporting section.
Each view in your Google Analytics account displays a default dashboard that is pre-populated
with a few widgets.
You can add new widgets to a dashboard by clicking Add to Dashboard at the top of any
report, or by clicking +Add Widget from the dashboard menu.
You can customize the layout of your dashboard and drag widgets around to re-organize them.
You can also customize or remove any widget on a dashboard, including the default widgets
that automatically display in your account.
Click the pencil icon in the top corner of each widget to see these customization options.
Like with Custom Reports, dashboards allow you to choose the specific metrics and dimensions
you want displayed in each widget, and add filters to include only the data you find
relevant.
You have the option of creating widgets that show you historical data for the date range
you select, or ones that show data in real time about the active visitors on your site.
You can use any combination of real-time and standard widgets in the dashboards that you
create in order to easily compare real-time site usage to overall historical trends.
While by default dashboards are available only in the view in which you create them,
you can share them with other people by using the Share menu in the Action Bar.
This can be useful if manage reporting for many departments or individuals in your organization.
You have two sharing options.
To make the dashboard available to all other users in a view, click "Share Dashboard."
Alternatively, to generate a template to send to other users, like with Custom Reports,
click the Share Template Link.
Remember, this only shares the dashboard settings, not any data.
Creating a well-organized and useful dashboard can take some time initially, but will build
efficiency into your reporting workflow in the long-run.
It is well worth the effort!
To ensure your dashboard focuses on the information that is most important for you and your other
report users, take some time to review your measurement plan before you begin designing
which dashboards and widgets you create.
For more ideas on what types of custom reports and dashboards could be useful to create for
your own account, check out the Google Analytics Solutions Gallery, linked from this lesson.