Analytics & Reporting is where operational and curated data becomes something you read. A report is a saved query with presentation — which entity it reads, what it joins, which columns, groups, summaries and filters — run live every time it opens. A dashboard assembles KPI, chart, table, report, map, button and text widgets into one canvas, each widget reading an entity, a report or a Data Studio dataset under the viewer's own access. Subscriptions email a report on a schedule in the format you choose, or a dashboard as a PDF rendered under your own access. Document reports turn records into designed print formats such as invoices and purchase orders. All of it runs inside the same access model as the rest of xMatix: what you can see is what you have been granted.
Choose the right surface
| You want to… | Use | Where it lives |
|---|---|---|
| List, sort, group and export live records | A grid report | Reports → New |
| Cross-tabulate one dimension against another | A pivot report | Reports → New Pivot Report |
| Print a record as a designed page | A document report wired to a record action | Reports → New Document Report, then the entity's Print/Preview action |
| Watch several numbers on one screen | A dashboard | Dashboards → New Dashboard, From Entity or From Dataset |
| Receive a report or dashboard by email without opening the app | A subscription | The bell on a library row or in the viewer |
| Compute a governed, pre-aggregated table once and reuse it | A dataset | Data Studio → Dataset Builder |
Every object is a governed definition, not a permission bypass and not a durable copy of somebody else's view: source security still applies when the query runs, and a new report or dashboard is visible only to its creator until it is shared.
What's in this section
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Reports | The report library, the grid, pivot and document formats, folders and favourites, row actions, and what happens when a report runs |
| Create a report | The report wizard end-to-end — data source, relationships, fields, columns, grouping, summaries, bucketing, filters, details |
| Report designer | The banded layout designer for document reports — bands, controls, properties, preview, save |
| Dashboards | The dashboard library, widget sources, how a dashboard loads, filters, sharing and delivery |
| Create a dashboard | The dashboard designer — widgets, governed sources, filter bar, pages, alerts, saving and sharing |
| Subscriptions | Scheduling a report or dashboard for email delivery — formats, schedules, recipients, what is and is not checked at send time |
| Sharing & access | Who can see a report or dashboard — the visibility rule and its pitfalls |
| Document reports | Print formats for records, and the Print and Preview actions that surface them |
| Troubleshooting | Missing or empty reports, blank dashboards, subscription emails that never arrive or arrive at the wrong hour |
Where Data Studio begins
Reports remain the primary surface for live operational questions: they run against current records the moment they open. Data Studio is where curated datasets and data models are defined, compiled into the analytics warehouse and rebuilt on a schedule, and where archive rules move cold history out of the working system. Dashboards consume those materialized datasets through From Dataset and dataset-backed chart widgets. If you are deciding which to use: start with a report or an entity-backed dashboard for a current operational question; move to Data Studio when one governed definition should be computed once and serve many consumers, or when the workload belongs in the warehouse rather than in the transactional path.
Permissions and administration
- Reading a report or dashboard needs only that it is active and shared with you (creator, all users, or one of your roles, teams or security profiles). There is no administrator bypass in the end-user menus.
- Creating reports and dashboards happens in the Reports and Dashboards pages of any app that carries them; the page-header actions appear for users allowed to create.
- Administering the whole inventory — every report and dashboard regardless of sharing, plus measures, calculated fields and hierarchies for dashboards — is Setup → Data Studio → Analytics, gated by the analytics administration capability (
setup.metadata.analytics.manage). That screen is also where a report is deactivated or reactivated.
Who this section is for
Everyday users who open, filter and subscribe to reports need only the Reports and Subscriptions pages. Analysts and administrators who build content should read the two creation guides and — before publishing anything — Sharing & access, because everything you create starts visible only to you.