Build and run reports with the Reporting workbench

The Reporting workbench lets you build a report in four steps from one shared set of learning data, run it, save it, and download the full result as a CSV file.

What it does

With the workbench on, a new Reports item appears in your admin menu under Analytics. It opens a page where you build, run and export reports yourself.

The report library

The page opens on your Report library, a table of every saved report with its Name, Dataset, Owner, Last run and number of Rows. You can search it and narrow it to one dataset. Select New report to start a new one.

Build a report in four steps

The guided builder walks you through four steps:

1. Choose data — pick a dataset, which is the kind of record the report is about. Datasets are grouped as Main reports, Assignments & paths, People & activity, Events, Commerce and Detail & drill-downs.
2. Pick columns — choose the fields to show. Fields are grouped by topic, such as user, course or team.
3. Add filters — narrow the rows. New reports start with sensible default filters, for example hiding blocked users.
4. Review & run — check your choices and select Run report.

If you prefer to work on one screen, select Skip to workbench. The workbench keeps an Options panel beside a preview of your rows. You can group rows, sort by a column, and choose how many Rows per page to show. Use Guided steps to go back to the step-by-step view.

Save, re-run and export

• Save stores the report under the name you give it. Saving under the name of the report you opened updates it; saving under a new name makes a copy. Nothing is saved until you name the report.
• Export CSV downloads every row that matches your filters, not just the page you are looking at.
• Saved reports are shared across the administrators who can open the workbench, so any of them can open and edit a saved report.

Why admins switch it on

• One place to answer most reporting questions, from learner progress and quiz answers to events, awards and subscriptions, without choosing between several different report builders.
• Reports are paged on the server, so large result sets open quickly, and the CSV download covers the whole result.
• Sub-administrators can use it too, limited to the learners in their own segment.

Before you switch it on

• The workbench is new and still growing. It is not yet a full replacement for every older report screen. Today it downloads CSV only (the older Report Builder exports to Excel or PDF), and it does not yet offer scheduled runs, Excel files or filters on totals. 
• It replaces three older screens. The workbench covers what these items under Analytics do: Report Builder, Activity Reports and Quiz Results. Switching the workbench on does not remove them. They stay in your menu and keep working until you ask us to hide them.
• Hiding the older menu items is a separate step. When we hide them, Report Builder, Activity Reports and Quiz Results disappear from the Analytics menu. Expiration Reports, Activity Dashboards, Overview Dashboards and Financial Dashboards stay. Only the menu changes; saved reports in the older tools are not deleted, and the older pages may still open if someone has the direct address. 
• Figures come from prepared reporting data. The workbench reads data that is copied into your site for reporting, rather than reading live records the way the older Report Builder does, so numbers can trail what you see in the live screens. If the data has not been prepared yet, the page tells you so. 
• Some datasets appear only when the related feature is on: time tracking, Checkpoints forms, Dynamic Assignments and Hierarchy memberships.
• Who can open it: super users and administrators. A sub-administrator can open it when their role grants the Reports permission in People > Admin Roles & Permissions. If the sub-administrator's role is limited to segments of learners, every run, value suggestion and CSV download is limited to those learners. A sub-administrator with no segment sees all learners, as in the older report tools. 
• If you turn the workbench off later, the Reports menu item and the page go away for everyone, and saved report definitions are no longer reachable from the menu. 

Related optional features

• Dynamic Assignments — adds a dataset you can report on in the workbench.
• Hierarchy builder — adds a dataset of who belongs to which unit.
• Completion tracking dashboards — a separate set of dashboards for progress on assigned content.