Reports

A report collects key figures of the shop in one PDF: revenue, orders, best-selling products, vouchers, returns and your own text. You create it right away or let plinth create it on a schedule. Every generated report is kept in the history and can be sent by email or posted to a Teams channel. Reports contain no customer data.

Where to find it

Open Reports > Reports. The page shows two tables:

• Reports: the reports you have set up, with period, schedule, delivery and the last generated report.
• History: the most recently generated reports with trigger, status and downloads.

The delivery channels (mail server and Teams) are behind the button Delivery channels at the top of the page.

What you need

• The permission View reports to see the list and the history and to download PDFs.
• Edit reports to create, change, archive and restore reports.
• Create and send reports to create a report right away with Create now.
• Export reports as CSV for the CSV download.
• Set up delivery channels for the mail server and the Teams connection.
• A connected shop and a finished statistics import, because the sections read their figures from Statistics. See Onboarding wizard.
• For delivery by email: a mail server set up under Delivery channels. For Teams: a webhook URL of the Teams channel.

A section appears in your report only if you may see its data. For example, the sections on brands and categories need the permission View assortment statistics. Permissions are assigned in Access.

How do I create a report?

1. Open Reports > Reports and click New report.
2. Enter a Name and, if you like, a Description (optional).
3. Choose the Period: Yesterday, Last 7 days, Last week (Mon to Sun), Last 30 days, Last month, This month to yesterday, Last quarter or Last year.
4. Choose the Comparison: no comparison, Previous period or Previous year.
5. Build the content under Sections (see below).
6. Click Save.

The period is always relative. A report with Last month shows the previous month each time it is created.

Sections

1. Click Add section and choose a section. The sections are grouped, for example:

2. Per section you can set a Title (empty = default), a Note below the section and, for lists, the Length.
3. Change the order with Move up and Move down. Remove deletes a section.
4. Tick off to turn off a section without deleting it. At least one section must be active.

Which sections are offered depends on the areas enabled for the shop and on your permissions.

How do I preview a report?

1. Open the report for editing.
2. Click Preview. The preview shows the report with current figures without saving it.
3. Click PDF preview to open the saved version as a PDF in a new tab. Unsaved changes are not included, so save first.

How do I create a report right now?

1. Open Reports > Reports.
2. Click Create now in the row of the report.
3. plinth generates the report with current numbers and sends it through the chosen delivery channels.
4. The new report appears at the top of History. Click the row to open it.

The opened report shows At a glance, Data notes (if sections could not be loaded) and Delivery (which channel worked).

How do I download a report as PDF or CSV?

1. Open Reports > Reports and go to History.
2. Click PDF in the row, or open the report and click Download PDF.
3. For the numbers as a table, open the report and click Download CSV. This needs the permission Export reports as CSV; the download is logged.

Downloads work only when you are signed in to plinth.

How do I send a report by mail on a schedule?

1. Open the report for editing.
2. Under Schedule, choose the Frequency: daily, weekly or monthly. no schedule means the report is only created by hand.
3. For weekly, choose the Weekday. For monthly, enter the Day of month (1 to 28).
4. Choose the Time (15-minute steps). Times use the time zone of the shop.
5. Tick Schedule active.
6. Under Delivery, tick Email and enter the Recipients, one address per line. Use business addresses only.
7. Optionally tick Teams to post a summary to the Teams channel.
8. Click Save. The list shows the schedule and Next run: with the next date.

The download in plinth is always included. The email contains one sentence and the PDF as an attachment: no figures in the text, no links. Teams shows a short summary and a link to plinth (sign-in required).

Note: To pause a report, remove the tick at Schedule active. The list then shows paused.

How do I set up the delivery channels?

You need the permission Set up delivery channels. The channels apply to this shop.

Email

1. Open Reports > Reports and click Delivery channels.
2. In the block Email, tick Active.
3. Fill in Server, Port, Encryption, Username and Password of your mail server.
4. Fill in Sender address and Sender name.
5. Click Save.
6. Enter a Test address and click Send test email. "Test sent successfully." confirms that the settings work.

The password is stored encrypted and never shown again. Leave the field empty to keep it. If you change server, port, encryption or username, the stored password is removed and you must enter it again.

Teams

1. In Teams, open the channel, choose Workflows and the template "Post to a channel when a webhook request is received". Copy the webhook URL.
2. In plinth, open Delivery channels. In the block Teams, tick Active.
3. Paste the address into Webhook URL and click Save.
4. Click Send test message.

Warning: The webhook URL contains an access token. Treat it like a password and do not share it.

The same mail server is used by the statistics mail in Statistics and by the notifications in Monitoring.

How do I archive or restore a report?

1. Open Reports > Reports.
2. Click Archive in the row of the report. It no longer runs on schedule and leaves the list.
3. To bring it back, click Show archived and then Restore.

Archived reports cannot be edited or created. Already generated reports stay in the history.

Common errors and fixes

See also

• Statistics: the figures behind most sections, and the statistics mail
• Vouchers and Returns: more sections for reports
• Monitoring: uses the same mail server and Teams connection
• Jobs: scheduled runs in the background
• Audit log