How to Use Report Scheduling and Take Back Your Time

Are you looking to run reports effectively? 

In this quick guide, let’s look at the three biggest benefits of automated report scheduling and how to dispatch it to clients in the blink of an eye.

• What is Report Scheduling
• Benefits of Automated Report Scheduling
• - Efficiency
• - Reduce Errors
• - Organization
• How can You Schedule Your Reports
• Start Your 15-day Free Trial with DashThis Today

What is Report Scheduling

Report scheduling, also known as automated reporting, automatically schedules and runs reports at a chosen time frame.       

You can automate report scheduling on any day of the week. For example, if you want to run a scheduled report for your Shopify client on the first of every month, tweak your start date and end date accordingly.  

Grab this Shopify report with your own data!

Neat, isn’t it? A beautiful report like this is bound to impress any client.

Now that you have a brief idea of how these automatic reports work, let’s look at their three main benefits.

Benefits of Automated Report Scheduling

Efficiency 

When Demand Gen Report surveyed 134 marketing executives, it unearthed many marketing measurement challenges today. 

22% of these B2B marketers don’t know which key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure—worse, 15% don’t know where to begin when it comes to reporting. 

These constant back-and-forth messages (e.g., “What KPI should we use?”, “How do you create marketing reports?”) eat up a lot of time, leading to a detrimental impact on your workflow and productivity.

A scheduling reporting tool like DashThis is perfect in this case, as it offers free templates with predetermined KPIs.

All templates include the most commonly used KPIs, so you can rest assured that you’re focusing on the right metrics

Don't know which KPIs to measure for an automotive client's automated report?

Click Automotive Marketing Report from the first row and carry on. Since it includes preset KPIs, you never have to worry about measuring the wrong metrics.

Now you can create these scheduled reports with confidence, all the while boosting your efficiency.

Start your 15-day free trial with DashThis today.

Reduce Errors 

In the same survey, Demand Gen Report discovered that 46% of marketers struggled with analyzing messy data.

Marketers in agencies often work with at least a dozen clients every month. Assuming that each client has five marketing channels, that’s 60 channels in total! 

We’re not trying to jinx it, but it’s only a matter of time marketers slip up when pulling all this messy data manually into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

Not only do these errors frustrate clients, but they also affect the sales team’s performance. A wrong figure in a report could bring about an ineffective sales strategy and impact the business's bottom line in the long run.

This is where automated report generation comes in. DashThis automates pretty much everything—from connecting all data sources in a single report and sending it at a scheduled time—and reduces errors and streamlines performance.

Grab this PPC report with your own data!

Say adios to the boring excel format. With DashThis, you can automatically share data across multiple channels in a single report—with zero errors.

See this PPC report above?

It shows data from two channels: Bing and Google Ads.

Organization

According to the Demand Gen Report, a whopping 51% of B2B marketers had a tough time connecting and analyzing data across different applications and platforms. 

Once again, marketing report scheduling solves this massive problem. You can automatically connect all data sources in a single report and schedule it with a few quick clicks.  

Can’t find a data source, say a CRM like Zoho? 

Don’t worry, simply configure your own custom data through CSV files. DashThis automatically updates it every month, saving you unnecessary steps of importing data again.

It’s tricky inputting custom data from CSV files. Check out our CSV troubleshooting page if you run into issues. 

The result? Effortless organization that leads to effective reporting for your business needs. 

How can you Schedule Your Reports

Now that you’re sold on automated report scheduling, let’s learn how to create and schedule a report with DashThis. (note: click here if you want to skip directly to scheduling).

1. Connect your data sources with DashThis (note: depending on each API, you need permissions to connect these integrations)
2. Select a template from 40+ free dashboards
3. Click Preset Widgets to pick your metrics

After you integrate your channels, DashThis automatically pulls the data of your choosing. No more copy-pasting, hurray!  

Drag and drop the widgets as you like for further customization. 

Edit the Header, click Color Theme for more branding options, and add a logo for a personalized touch. If you want to remove all DashThis branding altogether, check out our white-label options.

DashThis’ interactive interface lets you place your KPIs anywhere you like

To grant access to specific user groups, lock your report with a password and share it with relevant stakeholders. 

Use the Static Widget to share high-level recommendations. In the drop-down menu, click Comments, and a text editor will appear.

No HTML? No problem. Add BBCode (i.e., [h1] instead of <h1>) to prevent unwanted code injections.

And now for the scheduling part. Click Sharing Options > Share by Email > Frequency to schedule your reports.

This automatic email dispatch feature lets you set it once, daily, weekly, monthly, or quarterly. DashThis will automatically schedule and send the report according to your chosen time frame. 

Alternatively, download it as a PDF or share a URL link so clients can view them online in real-time.

You can also choose who you want to send the report to. Input the email address if it’s an individual user. Enter another and click ‘+’ if the report involves multiple stakeholders.  

There’s a lot more to DashThis’ automated report scheduling tool. Check out the full features and video tutorial for a deeper dive. 

Start Your 15-Day Free Trial With DashThis Today

Automated report scheduling reduces error, all the while improving efficiency and organization. These scheduled reports come in handy when streamlining workflow and saving time. 

DashThis is an automated marketing reporting tool that schedules your reports and more. Gather all your data in a single report and share it with clients in one place.

Try it with your data today. It’s all yours for free for 15 days.