--- title: Creating a Custom Report in Sitecore Experience Analytics description: Beyond the basics of Sitecore Experience Analytics, custom reports are the next step. This post provides advice on how to get started customizing reports. publish date: 2019-06-11 author: Suset Acosta image: https://media2.oshyn.com/-/media/Oshyn/Insights/Blog/Suset/Custom-Reports/SEAbanner.jpg?rev=12d9cdba05e240ffa83bd5bb7b62adb9 url: http://www.oshyn.com/blog/2019/06/sitecore-analytics-custom-report --- # Creating a Custom Report in Sitecore Experience Analytics ![Sitecore Experience Analytics Reports](https://media2.oshyn.com/-/media/Oshyn/Insights/Blog/Suset/Custom-Reports/SEAbanner.jpg?rev=12d9cdba05e240ffa83bd5bb7b62adb9&hash=7637FFE28959F9BBACC58DB49D4D467B) I was recently given the task of digging into Sitecore Experience Analytics. After spending some time working on it, I found myself needing to create my own report. The documentation outlines how to create a report from scratch, but I had a few challenges while following it. I hope that sharing my experience can help others trying to customize their Sitecore reporting. You must use Visual Studio and Sitecore Rocks to create a new report, so that was my first stop. Installing the tool was fairly easy. Just a note: make sure you choose the "Hard Rock Web Service" as Data Provider while configuring your connection. The Good Old Web Service, although "good", only shows raw values :) . ![Sitecore Rocks Connection](https://media2.oshyn.com/-/media/Oshyn/Insights/Blog/Suset/Custom-Reports/1.png?rev=7ecdafb075e649fa99407a728aca4478) Sitecore Rocks Connection So, you have installed Sitecore Rocks and successfully connected to your site. That means you are ready to follow Sitecore's user guide to create a new report. In my particular case, I intend to add a new report to the Dashboard to track offline interactions. This report will help me visualize how many visitors come to my website after receiving a postcard with a short URL to a Campaign landing page. In addition to the number of visits I would also like to view the value per visit, conversion rate, and bounce rate on the report. The end result should be a report very alike the online interactions report - but for offline. ![Sitecore Experience Analytics Online interactions report](https://media2.oshyn.com/-/media/Oshyn/Insights/Blog/Suset/Custom-Reports/2.png?rev=1f9fa2b5c2ac4c5eaac68c87a2f1e191) Sitecore Experience Analytics Dashboard Online interactions report Since the report I wanted to create was very similar to an existing report, I decided to copy the existing one instead of creating it from scratch: 1. Navigated to the existing report core/sitecore/client/Applications/ExperienceAnalytics/Dashboard/PageSettings/Online interactions 2. Right clicked the Online interactions report and selected Duplicate. ![menu options](https://media2.oshyn.com/-/media/Oshyn/Insights/Blog/Suset/Custom-Reports/3.png?rev=d920cd93d3dd4d67afa6bac5ab37b8f3) 3. Entered the name of my new report ![name popup](https://media2.oshyn.com/-/media/Oshyn/Insights/Blog/Suset/Custom-Reports/4.png?rev=d3d90f4cd1b048ef8ac54bca297f7890) After my previous steps, I had a duplicate of the online interactions report. Because I intend to get a pretty similar report (but to track offline instead of online), I don't need to modify any of the Metrics or the Segment on the report. What I need to change in this case is the report key from online to offline. ![Sitecore Experience Analytics Report Configuration](https://media2.oshyn.com/-/media/Oshyn/Insights/Blog/Suset/Custom-Reports/5.png?rev=415a6bd2806a40278a3df8b3b6caaa8e) Sitecore Experience Analytics Report Configuration To find my new key, I navigated to my Sitecore instance Marketing Control Panel and looked for channels taxonomy. I copied the Offline channel "Item ID", made it all lower case, and removed the dashes. ![Offline channel item in marketing control panel taxonomy](https://media2.oshyn.com/-/media/Oshyn/Insights/Blog/Suset/Custom-Reports/6.png?rev=f71ad110e543406bb4d3da2a21c2a056) Offline channel item in marketing control panel taxonomy Back to Visual Studio to replace the key value and save my changes. Next, I needed to figure out how to display the report on the dashboard, so I went back to Sitecore's user guide and followed the steps to Add a chart component to a report. Again, because the report I needed was very similar to the online interactions report, I used that one as reference. So instead of adding a new rendering from scratch, I just duplicated the OnlineInteractions one. ![Sitecore Experience Analytics Item Options](https://media2.oshyn.com/-/media/Oshyn/Insights/Blog/Suset/Custom-Reports/7.png?rev=596d6fc04f2c4b0ab3ede19e87beef95) Sitecore Experience Analytics Item Options I saved my changes and went straight to Sitecore to check my Experience Analytics dashboard. ![Sitecore Experience Analytics Dashboard with custom report](https://media2.oshyn.com/-/media/Oshyn/Insights/Blog/Suset/Custom-Reports/8.png?rev=39b0b7f675fe4a4c9fdae0068d408405) Sitecore Experience Analytics Dashboard with custom report Good news! The report was there, but the presentation wasn't what I wanted; it was showing on the Online interactions section report. I couldn't find anything on the documentation about creating sections, so I had to figure it out by looking at the existing reports. After a second look, I realized that there are RowPanel and ColumnPanel renderings on the reports layout controlling how the reports display. ![Sitecore Experience Analytics Dashboard layout](https://media2.oshyn.com/-/media/Oshyn/Insights/Blog/Suset/Custom-Reports/9.jpg?rev=0b5e4600f33c4f67ab1c63e1b7798a3c) Sitecore Experience Analytics Dashboard layout So I added a section to hold my report: 1. Added a RowPanel and a ColumnPanel rendering to the page. 2. Set the number of columns on the ColumnPanel rendering to 12, since I wanted the report to use the screen full width (6 columns is 50%). 3. Edited each rendering properties to select the desired PlaceholderKey by clicking the ellipsis. 4. Selected the desired placeholder for each item and hit OK: 1. RowPanel 1: Main.Content 2. ColumnPanel 1: RowPanel 1.Content 3. OfflineInteractions: ColumnPanel 1. Content 5. Saved all my changes and went back to Sitecore. Finally, I was able to see my report the way I expected it to display. ![Sitecore Experience Analytics Dashboard with custom report in separate section](https://media2.oshyn.com/-/media/Oshyn/Insights/Blog/Suset/Custom-Reports/13.png?rev=9d04698d1e9c4e2aa27952c25b07875f) Sitecore Experience Analytics Dashboard with custom report in separate section Next, I'll be testing my report by hitting that short URL I mentioned at the beginning.