Reporting Updates Coming Soon!
UPDATE (March 12, 2020):
Reporting updates are now live in all accounts!
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We’re excited to introduce significant improvements to reporting in Act-On. In the coming weeks, the look and feel of our reporting presentations will be updated. These changes are designed to make our reporting data more accessible, insightful, and useful for our customers.
In this post I’ll go into detail on what those changes are and why we think they’ll make Act-On better for you. But your opinion is what matters the most, and we’d love to hear your opinions on these changes.
Read on for the details - and if you’d like to gain early access to the new reports, consider joining the Design Partner Program or simply leave a comment here and let me know you are interested (no need to include email address in your comment).
What’s New?
In his post last week, UX/UI Architect David Doms outlined some of the main reasons why we decided to prioritize reporting redesign, and why it’s so important to our customers. David also gave a sneak peak of the upcoming changes.
In summary, the changes include:
- Modern, interactive charts for the majority of reports in the Act-On application
- Enhanced chart export options
- Design updates to impacted reporting pages
- New design and layout for the Sent Messages report
The changes are UI/UX focused and do not include backend or database changes.
The two main functional enhancements in the new charts are:
1) Enhanced interactivity
- Hovering over a chart element (such as one column or the corresponding legend) highlights that element (i.e. makes it stand out in comparison to other elements). By doing so, users can isolate that data and gain insight on a single reporting element.
- Clicking on a legend, such as Sent in the below example, removes the Sent column from the chart and adjusts the chart to only include the other columns. This is very useful when data points vary in relative size, and customers require additional detail for particular data.
- Hovering over a line chart displays tooltips with date and date-specific data points.
- Drag to zoom: click and drag inside the chart to zoom into a shorter time frame. If you need detailed information on a data segment (or a time period, as shown below), zooming in allows you to isolate and view the applicable data, quickly and easily.
2) Enhanced export options
- Print chart
- Download chart as a jpg image file
- Download chart as a pdf file
- Download chart data into a csv spreadsheet file
From a design perspective, we focused on improved consistency and clarity across charts. Changes include:
- More clarity on whether counts shown are Uniques or Totals
- More tooltips to explain what we’re showing in a chart, and how values are calculated
- Improved page layouts and information architecture (i.e. how and where data is presented and displayed)
- For the Sent Messages report, a new Key Metrics section to summarize most important metrics at the top of the page
- For the Sent Messages report, launch details table with all available launch data organized in a logical, accounting-like fashion
Below are screenshots of a sample of the affected pages with a brief description of changes:
Sent Messages report (help article)
Above, you can see multiple changes to the presentation, including:
- Layout
- Additional metrics: Addressed, Delivered, Click to Open Rate, Did Not Click
- Increased clarity on Unique vs. Totals
- An all new Details chart and a new visualization of an existing pie/donut chart
- A new Details table in a logical, accounting-like format.
- A new tab for Device & Client Data (currently available in the “New” Sent Messages report)
Landing Pages report (help article)
- More clarity on Unique vs. Totals
- Recent Activity chart changed to a Daily Activity line chart that displays All Time by default and can be zoomed into (drag to zoom).
Website Visitor report:
- New charts make it easy to view and drill into details
- Light-touch design changes
FAQs
Q: When are these changes happening?
A: We are rolling the changes out gradually over the next few weeks. All customers should have access to these changes by the end of March, 2020.
Q: What pages within the application are affected?
A: Nearly all reporting pages that currently have charts in them have been redesigned with new charts and layout. Automated Programs and the Funnel Report reports are not yet updated.
Q: May I preview the changes?
A: Yes. We can enable the changes in test/staging accounts or production accounts on request. Consider joining the Design Partner Program to participate more actively in early testing or leave a comment here to request early access.
Q: May I choose to continue using the old versions?
A: No. These changes are universal for all existing Act-On customers. We are confident that these improvements in reporting and information will deliver a better experience for our customers. If you have additional questions or wish to speak with our support team, please reach out to us directly.
Q: Will the changes initially be available as Labs features?
A: At this time, we have tested and proven the viability of these reporting redesigns. Therefore, we are not including them in the Labs environment.
Q: How do I provide feedback?
A: We have many options for our customers to provide feedback. The Community is the ideal location to pose questions and suggest product ideas. You may also want to join the Design Partner Program to participate in the product development process. Our product team is always available to discuss product enhancements or general requirements.
Q: Are you removing any of the current reports or data points?
A: As part of the Sent Message report overhaul, we’re consolidating the two existing versions of this report into one. This means the “new” Sent Messages report available via Labs will be deprecated. All of the data from that report will be included in our new report.
In addition, we will no longer display Total Effective Opens in the Sent Messages report. All opens, including effective opens are now included in the Total Opens count.
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I would like to join the Design Partner Program. I do have a question though. Would this be enabled only on my account or on all of my company's user's accounts? I would only like this to be enabled for my account.
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Hi Yumna Moazzam,
Thanks for your interest in joining the Design Partner Program! We're able to enable these changes on an account level but not on a user level. So if you have multiple different accounts, we can easily enable in whichever one you prefer. However, if you have one account with multiple users (i.e. different logins), we're unable to enable the changes to just some users. Hope this makes sense!
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I would like to join the Design Partner Program
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Please sign me up for the Design Partner Program
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Please sign me up for the Design Partner Program.
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Please sign me up for the Design Partner Program
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I love the interest everyone has shown for the Design Partner Program. Many of you have found your way in but for those who haven't, please sign yourself up when you're ready. You'll receive a link to book time on the calendar of an Act-On designer. It's not necessary you book a time right away but we'd love to talk soon. Thanks everybody!
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I really love these improved reports, they are miles better than before and show alot of very useful data and insights that i can easily view, export and use for my internal reporting for all my global accounts.
Thanks for taking the time to really improve UX, modernise the charts to allow very in depth analysis and for the ability to export images and PDF.
I cant wait to share this with my internal team this week.
Thanks
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Hi Laura Willis. On behalf of the entire team that worked hard on these enhancements, thank you. We truly appreciate it!
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