Creating custom reports
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Before you start working with custom reports, make sure to check the Generating pay equity reports article to discover how to navigate the general reporting section within PayAnalytics, how to generate standard reports from your dataset and in certain cases from analysis, and how to make use of the built-in mandatory government reports for local compliance.
As no organization is the same, you may have specific reporting needs and requirements that exceed the built-in reports. To support you, the PayAnalytics reporting section includes a feature to generate your own custom reports.
In this article, the following actions will be covered:
For more information about creating custom reports, see the following video:
Creating a new report with relevant sections
To create a brand new report, proceed as follows:
From your PayAnalytics navigation, head to Reports, and select the relevant dataset or analysis to serve as a basis for your custom report, as illustrated in the following picture:
Reports page
Note that if the analysis contains multiple subgroup analyses, you have the option of selecting All subgroups combined or an individual subgroup analysis.
Click Create new report and select Empty by clicking the report icon to start from scratch using a blank template, as shown in the following illustration:
Opening an empty report
Depending on your general settings, you may enter the report in either view or edit mode. If not already the case, click the You are viewing button, and select Edit Mode to start building your custom report, as illustrated in the following picture:
Activating edit mode
To give your report a name, click the icon next to the default “Unnamed report (#)” title. A pop-up window will appear. Type your chosen name in the text field and click Update, as shown in the following illustration:
Naming a report
Use a descriptive name that will help you (and others) to understand the scope and use case of the report in the future.
Once your blank report has been created and has a title, you must add to it at least one section. Click the icon on the left pane of the report to add a new section, as illustrated in the following picture:
Adding a new section to the report
Choose from the predefined section types for the report, as shown in the following illustration:
Types of sections available for the report
Note that the available types may vary depending on whether you have an analysis selected.
Specialized and generic sections
Sections are divided into specialized and more generic graphics. The specialized sections come predefined with key information based on the pay equity analysis, while the generic sections can be customized to generate graphs and visualize data, both from the raw dataset and the analysis results.
Specialized sections
Compensation drivers require you to have an analysis selected, and allow you to incorporate the details of the compensation model in your report.
Pay gaps enable you to analyze the pay gaps, both unadjusted and adjusted, before and after raises.
The estimated adjusted pay gap drills down into the estimated adjusted pay gap within groups of your dataset. This section is customizable and can be shown before and after raises have been applied.
The unadjusted pay gap by group visualizes the unadjusted pay gaps within the selected categories of groups, and can also be shown as before and after raises.
Cost of compensation summarizes the cost of raises, broken down by any grouping column in the dataset.
Generic sections
The generic sections let you visualize your data and analysis results in different ways. The following section types are available:
Vertical bars: compare categories with classical vertical bar charts
Horizontal bar: displays distributions or comparisons with horizontal stacked bars
Marimekko chart: shows composition and group size with variable-width columns and stacked segments
Bubble chart: highlights patterns with two axes and a third "size" dimension
Text only: adds narrative, context, and captions without a chart
Customizing your sections, data, display, and filters
After adding your section, you can edit its title by clicking the icon on the right of the default section title and make your update accordingly.
Once you have more than one section in the report, you can reorder them by selecting the icon in the middle. The icon allows you to choose a different input variable, which will be applied to all current sections in the report. The icons are shown in the following illustration:
Additional actions
To customize the generic sections to meet your reporting needs, you can update/edit the default section configurations. Go to Settings and click the Open arrow on the right of the section pane.
Within Settings, you have the following options:
Selected variable – the key data point you wish to visualize from available columns (numerical variables) in your data, for example total compensation before raises, raises, total compensation after raises, or any other data point from your employee list.
Group by – the categories by which you want to organize your employee data, such as country, legal entity, etc. You can also choose numerical variables and apply grouping methods like defined brackets, quartiles, or deciles.
Chart type – the display options for the data; by default set to a vertical bar chart, with the option to select a Marimekko, bubble charts, a horizontal bar, and others.
Aggregate – the statistical measure applied to the selected variable; by default set to calculate the average, with options to select from the minimum, maximum, various percentiles, median, total, and headcount.
Organize data by – the demographic variable used to break down your data. Gender is the most common choice, but you can use any demographic variable configured in your dataset, or even choose not to organize the data by a demographic variable. This option can only be applied when more than one demographic variable is included in the dataset.
Demographic group – the demographic group for display in your graph, which can include all groups within your selected demographic variable (e.g., male, female, nonbinary, not reported) or only a subset (e.g., male, female).
The Settings section is presented in the following illustration:
Settings section
You can also apply filters to your data in reports. The filtering is based on the employee table and allows you to filter out employees based on specific criteria (columns), such as their job role. Note that to use filters, you have to be in Edit Mode. We support the following ways of filtering:
A global filter that applies to all sections of a report. Head to the full-width bar at the bottom of the screen and click Display filter to open the employee table and apply filters to any or multiple columns, for example Job Role.
A local filter for a specific section of the report. Within the section, head to the Employee Filter and click the Open arrow on the right to open the local employee table and apply filters to any or multiple columns, for example Location.
The Employee Filter section is illustrated in the following picture:
Employee Filter section
Adding simple text context or using the advanced wizard
To provide context and a summary description of the graph data and takeaways, you can add text to your report sections. Text can be added before the graph, after, or both.
Simple text description
To add simple text, click the Open arrow next to the text section you want to add, type your text in the text field that opens up, format the text, and click Save changes. You can preview the text in the Text preview section to ensure it meets your requirements, as shown in the following illustration:
Adding simple text
Advanced dynamic text
The Template expression wizard allows you to add dynamic calculations from your dataset to the text in a report. The wizard helps you build your calculation, and the wizard text can be added/used in the text field within a section of your report.
The following fields are available within the expression wizard, some of which are required and others are optional, depending on the type of calculation you need:
Data selection (required) – indicate the basis of the data on which you want to do the calculations. Here you can choose the dataset as a whole or a subset of the dataset based on either global or local filtering. If you are working on a report for an analysis, you can also choose the analysis results.
Filter variable (optional) – if you are looking at the data (or a subset of it), you can choose a filter field, such as demographic or categorical variables in your data. Use it when you want to calculate something for a particular category in your data, for example a specific job role.
Selected variable – the data columns (numerical variable) you would like to perform the calculation on, such as total salary, value points, or adjusted pay gap.
Aggregate configuration (required) – choose the type of calculations to be performed on your selected variable. For instance, you can calculate the average, percentiles, minimum, or maximum of the total salary.
The Template expression wizard is illustrated in the following picture:
Template expression wizard
Once you have completed the expression wizard, click Add to text to automatically copy the calculation to your text field. Preview the expression within your text to ensure it is valid and meaningful. Click Save changes to close the creation process.
Saving your custom report as a new template for re-use
Once you have created your custom report, you can save it as a template for future use. To do so, simply select Edit or create template from the options menu, as illustrated in the following picture:
Options menu
This will enable you to quickly apply the same structure to other datasets and easily reuse the report layout and configurations without having to start from scratch each time. Note that if a template is not created, the custom report will only be available for the underlying dataset or analysis.