Create a custom report when you want to bring related Cedros summaries together for a recurring business question. You can describe the question, review the proposed sources and output, and run the report before deciding whether to keep it active or schedule it.
Start by checking the reports already available. Content Performance, Customer Growth MoM, Revenue Health, and Support Volume, for example, may already cover what you need.
Decide whether a custom report fits
A custom report brings together available summaries for areas such as customers, revenue, content, journeys, acquisition, and support. Its setup describes what you want to learn and which information should help answer it.
The setup is not a free-form calculation builder. Naming a column or writing a formula in Processing logic does not create a new calculation, database join, or date filter. The result uses Cedros's supported summaries, with their own measures and reporting periods. Review the actual result before relying on it to answer a more specific question.
For a first report, choose a focused question such as: What do our content performance and customer-growth summaries show? Avoid starting with a complex comparison that depends on data you have not collected or a calculation you have not verified.
If you need to inspect one page or article, Checking the performance of a page, post, or doc may be a better starting point. For visitor journeys and purchase reporting, see Understanding journeys, attribution, and revenue.
Describe and draft the setup
- Open Reports and select New report.
- In What should this report answer?, describe the question in plain language. Name the business area and the comparison you hope to make.
- Enter a recognizable Name, or review the name proposed during drafting. Set Owner team and Category so teammates can find and maintain it.
- Select Draft setup to propose the sources, columns, and processing logic.
- Read the resulting Blueprint before creating the report.
Draft setup uses your site's configured AI when available and can incur AI usage. It prepares an editable setup; it does not run the report or verify that every requested metric is available. If AI drafting is unavailable, Cedros can provide a local starting draft and display a notice. Review that draft just as carefully.
The question is limited to 600 characters. Keep it specific enough to guide the setup without pasting a long brief or raw customer records. The report name must contain at least three characters.
Owner team is a label for responsibility, not an invitation to a team or a change to access permissions. Category controls how the report is filed.
After drafting, Redraft setup can replace the proposed name, owner, category, sources, columns, and logic. Use it deliberately if you have already edited those fields. Saving the report is a separate step.
Review the blueprint
The Blueprint shows Sources, Columns, and Logic. Open Edit blueprint to change them.
The source choices cover:
- CRM profiles for customers, users, and visitors recorded in your CRM.
- Revenue for payment and attributed-revenue summaries.
- Content & analytics for page views, top pages, and content status.
- Journeys & funnels for recorded journeys, forms, and conversion signals.
- Acquisition & retention for campaigns, attribution, and retention summaries.
- Support conversations for support activity and handoffs.
Select the areas relevant to your question. Selecting a source does not connect a new external service, create missing records, or grant access to data. The report uses what is available on your site.
In Columns, list the information you want to review, separated by commas or new lines. Keep the list short and use clear names. In Processing logic, describe the intended interpretation or comparison in plain language. These fields help define the report's purpose, but they do not guarantee an output table with exactly those columns.
For the content-and-growth example, you might request Published entries, page views, top pages, new profiles, then describe reviewing content activity alongside the customer-growth summary. Check the periods shown in the result before comparing them; putting two summaries together does not make their time windows identical or prove that one caused the other.
Review Saved output summary below the blueprint. This is a short description composed from the columns and logic for the assistant to read. It is not a preview of calculated results. The counter shows its 240-character limit, and a notice appears if the text is shortened. Trim the wording if important context would be lost.
Before saving, make sure the report has a question, a name, at least one source, at least one column, and processing logic. Cedros points out missing fields when you try to save.
Choose when and how it can run
Under Availability, review three choices:
- Report is active allows the report to run. Turning it off pauses the report, including manual runs and its schedule.
- Schedule starts as On demand for a new report. Keep this while checking the first result. Change opens the schedule controls when you are ready to set a recurrence.
- Available to the assistant lets the assistant list and run the report for teammates with the relevant access. Turn it off if you want to keep this report out of assistant use.
Availability changes in this editor take effect when you save the report. Turning off assistant availability does not pause the report or remove it from Reports.
When you change a schedule inside the editor, finish saving the report too. Review the timezone before enabling a recurring run. A schedule determines when a report runs; it does not set the reporting period used by every summary inside it.
Create it and inspect the first result
- Keep Report is active on and select Create and run. Cedros saves the report and starts its first run.
- Wait for the run to finish. Queued or Running is not a completed result.
- Read Latest result, including any period labels, key results, and findings that are available.
- Check whether the reported measures actually answer your question. Compare a few figures with the relevant source report using the same scope and period.
- If you need more detail, expand Raw report data. It contains the saved setup and the included results; a field appearing in the setup is not proof that its value was calculated.
To save without running, turn Report is active off first. The button becomes Create report. You can enable the saved report and use Run now later.
A custom result may show several analysis sections and their summaries rather than one spreadsheet-like table. If it provides only a source inventory or broad counts, it has not answered a more detailed question simply because the run completed. Narrow the report to supported summaries or use a report that provides the measure you need.
A successful run means the report finished. It does not establish that the source data is complete, that the requested comparison was performed, or that the result supports a business conclusion. For example, a low page-view count may reflect collection settings as well as low traffic. Check Configuring analytics and tracking integrations when expected activity has not been collected.
Refine a saved report
Open the report and choose Edit report. Adjust the question or blueprint, then select Save changes. Existing reports open with their setup available to edit; you do not need to redraft them for every small change.
Save changes does not automatically rerun an existing report. Return to its detail page and select Run now to check the revised setup. Until a new run finishes, an older result may still be the latest completed result.
Use What this report reads to review the saved sources, columns, and logic. Check the run's timestamp when deciding which version of the result you are reading. Earlier runs remain available in the report's Runs list and in History.
If the result cannot produce the requested calculation, changing the wording repeatedly is not a substitute for verifying that the measure exists. Keep the report focused on what its returned sections actually provide.
When creation or a run does not work
Draft setup shows a fallback notice. Review and correct the proposed setup. The notice means AI drafting was unavailable, not that the report's business question has been validated.
The editor will not save. Follow the field messages. Check the question, name, sources, columns, and processing logic. Keep individual column names concise and remove unnecessary entries if a limit is reported.
The report saved but its schedule failed. The report may already exist. Open it and correct the schedule instead of creating a duplicate. Confirm whether the first run started; a schedule error can prevent that automatic first run.
The first run failed. The saved report remains available to edit. Read What went wrong, correct the named problem, and try Run now again when appropriate. Creating another copy does not resolve the original failure.
Run now is unavailable. Check whether the report is paused or archived and whether your account can run reports. Editing a definition requires settings write access; an account may be able to view or run a report without being able to edit it.
The assistant cannot find the report. Review Available to the assistant, save any change, and check the teammate's access. Assistant availability does not override permissions.
The result is empty, broad, or missing requested columns. Check the included sections, source data, and reporting periods. Columns and logic describe your intended output; they do not add unsupported calculations. Use the result itself to decide whether the report meets your need.
If you need help with access or a missing control, ask the site owner to review your feature and settings access.