Create a report

A report is one or more pages of visuals built on one data model. You build it in the editor. People read it in view mode.

Before you start

• You need the Admin or Editor role in the workspace. Viewers do not see New report.
• You need a data model with at least one Data Table, and Build permission on it. See Data models.
• Edit reports on a computer. On a small screen the editor shows Open on a computer to edit.

Create a report

1. In the left menu, open Reports.
2. Click New report.
3. Enter a Report name (at most 200 characters).
4. Pick a Data model. The list shows how many Data Tables each data model has. A data model without Data Tables cannot be picked.
5. Click Create. The editor opens with one empty page.

Note

The list only shows data models you have Build permission on. No data model yet? The dialog links to New data model.

The Reports list

• Switch between Grid view and List view.
• Search with Search reports by name.
• Sort by last updated or by name.
• Each report shows Published or Draft. A draft has never been saved for viewers.
• Click a report name to view it. Click Edit to open the editor.

The editor

The editor has a top bar, a ribbon, the canvas with page tabs, and three panes on the right.

Area	What it does
Top bar	Back to Reports, the report name and save state, History, Share, View, the … menu and Save.
Ribbon	Add a Visual, Text box, Image, Button, Page navigator or Shapes. Add a Page. Open Interactions, Bookmarks, Selection and Sync slicers. Arrange, grid, Undo, Redo, Shortcuts and zoom.
Canvas	The report page. Select, move and resize visuals here.
Page tabs	Switch, add, rename, duplicate, move and delete pages. Zoom slider, Fit to page and Fit to width.
Filters pane	Filters on this visual, this page and all pages. See Filters.
Visualizations pane	Pick the visual type. Tabs Build, Format and Analytics.
Data pane	The tables, columns and measures of the data model.

Each pane can be collapsed and resized. The editor remembers your layout. On narrow screens the Filters and Data panes start collapsed.

Visualizations pane

The pane has up to three tabs:

• Build: the visual types and the wells of the selected visual. Drop fields into the wells. See Visuals.
• Format: the format cards of the selected visual. With no visual selected, it shows the page settings and the report theme. See Format and themes.
• Analytics: reference lines such as average, median or trend. Only chart types that support them show this tab.

Data pane

• Search with Search fields.
• Click a field to add it to the selected visual. Click it again to remove it.
• With no visual selected, clicking a measure adds a Card. Clicking a column adds a Table.
• Drag a field onto an empty part of the page to start a new visual there.
• Drag a field onto a well, or onto a section of the Filters pane.

Right-click a field for more options:

Option	What it does
New measure	Adds a measure to the data model draft.
Rename	Renames the field in the data model draft.
Hide / Unhide	Hides the field from the field list. View hidden shows hidden fields again.
Add to filters	Adds a filter on This visual, This page or All pages.
Add to well	Adds the field to a well of the selected visual.

Note

New measure, Rename and Hide change the data model, so they need Build permission on the Data Table. They change the data model draft; publish the data model to make them final. See Measures.

A measure marked Needs rewrite came from another BI tool and returns blank until you rewrite its expression. See Move from another BI tool.

Add and arrange visuals

1. Click Visual in the ribbon to add a Clustered column chart. Or pick a type in Visualizations with nothing selected.
2. Drop fields into the wells in the Build tab.
3. Drag the visual to move it. Drag its edges to resize it.

To change the type of a visual, select it and pick another type. Fields the new type cannot take appear under Not used. Switch back before saving to keep them.

A page has at most 100 visuals and a report at most 500. When a page is full, Fresco BI shows The visual limit is reached.

Right-click a visual for Copy, Cut, Paste, Duplicate, the layer commands (Bring to front, Bring forward, Send backward, Send to back), Group, Ungroup, Lock and Delete.

Layers

Click Selection in the ribbon to open the Selection pane:

• Layer order: move visuals up or down, show or hide them, lock them, group them.
• Tab order: the order in which viewers move between visuals with the Tab key.

Arrange aligns and distributes the selected visuals. Distribute needs at least 3 visuals; Group needs at least 2. See Canvas objects for text boxes, images, buttons and shapes.

Pages

A report has at most 50 pages. Page names have 1 to 100 characters.

Task	How
Add a page	Click Page in the ribbon, or Add page (+) at the end of the page tabs.
Rename a page	Double-click its tab, or use Rename page in the tab menu. You can also edit Page name in the Format tab.
Duplicate a page	Duplicate page in the tab menu. The copy has copies of all visuals.
Reorder pages	Drag a tab, or use Move left / Move right in the tab menu.
Delete a page	Delete page in the tab menu, then confirm. Its visuals are deleted too. The last page cannot be deleted.

Note

Single pages cannot be hidden. To give viewers your own navigation instead of page tabs, turn on Hide page tabs in the viewer in the page settings and add a page navigator. See Canvas objects.

Undo and redo

Click Undo or Redo in the ribbon, or press Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+Shift+Z (or Ctrl+Y). The editor keeps the last 100 steps. Text boxes keep their own undo while you type.

Save

The editor keeps a draft in the background while you work. The top bar shows the state: Saved, Unsaved changes, Saving… or Couldn’t save with Retry.

There is one Save button. Save (Ctrl+S) publishes the draft: viewers then see your changes. Until you click Save, the changes stay in a draft only you can see.

• Data model not published. If the data model has never been published, Fresco BI asks: Publish both. You need permission to publish the data model; otherwise it names the person to ask, with Copy link.
• Fields missing. If the published data model lacks fields the report uses, click Remove from visuals, or publish the data model first.
• Problems to fix. If something on the report is invalid, a list opens. Click Go to visual to jump to it.
• The draft changed. If the draft was saved somewhere else, click Reload. Unsaved changes here are lost.

When you leave with unsaved changes, Fresco BI asks you to Save, Don’t save or Cancel. When you come back to a draft with unsaved changes, you can Discard them or Keep editing.

Caution

A report can be at most 4 MB. A larger report cannot be saved: The report is too large to save.

History

Each draft save is a revision.

1. Click History in the top bar.
2. Click a revision. The canvas shows it read-only. Current draft and Published mark those revisions.
3. Click Restore this revision to make it the new draft, or Back to draft.
4. Click Save to publish the restored draft.

Restoring never deletes revisions and never publishes. A revision that no longer fits the current data model cannot be restored.

Duplicate, export, import and delete

Open the … menu in the editor top bar, in the viewer, or on a report in the list.

Action	What it does
Duplicate	Creates a copy with a new name (the default ends with “(copy)”). Needs Build on the report and its Data Table.
Export as JSON	Downloads the current draft as a .json file: layout and settings, no data.
Delete report	Moves the report to the Trash. You can restore it within 30 days. A toast offers Undo right away.

To import a report file:

1. On Reports, click Import from JSON.
2. Pick a .json file exported from Fresco BI (at most 4 MB). Fresco BI shows its name, number of pages and visuals.
3. Pick the Data model and enter a Name.
4. Click Import. The report opens in the editor.

If the data model lacks fields the file uses, Fresco BI lists them: pick a data model that has them.

See Trash to restore a deleted report.

Keyboard shortcuts

Press ? anywhere to open Keyboard shortcuts, or click Shortcuts in the ribbon. On macOS use ⌘ instead of Ctrl.

Keys	Action
Ctrl+S	Save
Ctrl+Z	Undo
Ctrl+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Y	Redo
Ctrl+D	Duplicate visual
Ctrl+C / Ctrl+X / Ctrl+V	Copy, cut and paste visual (on any page of the same report)
Arrow keys	Move visual
Shift+arrow keys	Move visual further
Delete or Backspace	Delete visual
Enter or Space	Select visual
Tab / Shift+Tab	Next or previous visual
Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click	Add or remove a visual from the selection
Ctrl+A	Select every visual on the page
Esc	Clear the selection
Ctrl+G	Group the selected visuals
Ctrl+Shift+G	Ungroup
Shift+Drag	Resize and keep the aspect ratio
Ctrl+F6 / Ctrl+Shift+F6	Move between the canvas, Filters, Visualizations and Data
Ctrl+K	Search

What next

• Pick the right visual: Visuals.
• Let viewers filter: Slicers and Filters.
• Share it: Share a report.