Setting up reports

Where to find Setting up reports

In the top menu bar, click " (Settings)".

The Settings menu opens on the left. Choose "Reports".

The Reports page opens.

What is a report?

A report is an automatic delivery of your most important numbers to one or more people. You decide once what gets sent, when, and to whom. From then on, Trustlytics takes over.

You can run several reports side by side. A few examples of how that looks in practice:

• A weekly report to the marketing team, every Monday morning.
• An SEO report to your agency, once a month.
• A quick text to the boss with the three or four numbers that really matter.
• Your own cockpit as a PDF, straight to your own inbox.

And that is exactly the appeal: everyone gets what they need. Management does not want thirty metrics, they want three. Your SEO agency, on the other hand, wants the search terms in detail. With separate reports, you serve both without anyone having to dig through numbers they do not care about.

Creating a report

Fill in the "New report" form. Here are the fields, top to bottom:

Finally, click "Create report". After that it shows up at the top of the list.

No matter which mode you pick: the report always comes. Even when nobody visited your website during that period. You get an email with zeros instead of no email at all. That is built in on purpose, because silence is hard to read. If nothing arrives, you would never know whether there were no visitors or whether sending is stuck.

Channel: email or SMS

Email

SMS

As long as you do not have a connected service with an SMS provider (ASPSMS), you can see the SMS channel in the form but cannot select it. It stays grayed out, and Trustlytics shows you a note about what is still missing. Once an SMS provider (ASPSMS) is connected under Services, the channel becomes selectable.

Which channel when? Email is the standard case. It shows everything in detail, with a PDF to file and forward. Text messages are meant for a quick pulse check: one number, one glance, done. Handy for someone who is rarely at a computer but still wants to know whether things are working.

Report source: template or your own cockpit

This is where you decide what actually goes into the report. Two ways are open to you.

The seven ready-made templates. Each one is built for a particular audience and delivers sensible numbers no matter what, whether as an email or a short text.

For the vast majority, one of these templates is plenty. You do not have to build anything yourself, you just pick.

Your own cockpit. If you have set up your own dashboard, you can have exactly that sent out. The report then includes your complete cockpit as a PDF attachment, pixel for pixel the way you see it on screen.

Entering recipients

In the "Recipients" field, put one address or number per line. No commas, no semicolons, just hit Enter and keep going.

Email example:

boss@company.com
marketing@company.com
agency@external.com

SMS example, in international format with a plus sign and country code:

+12125551234
+13105557890

Trustlytics checks every single line when you save. If something is off, you get a clear message about what needs fixing. So you never accidentally save a report that goes nowhere.

Frequency and time

You decide how often the report goes out:

The time (0 to 23) applies to the Swiss time zone. Trustlytics sends on the hour. Set it to "08" and the report goes out between 08:00 and 09:00.

The day of month stops at 28, and there is a good reason for that: the 30th or 31st does not exist in every month, and February would lose out anyway. That way your report reliably arrives every single month.

Data range

Here you set which period the report covers. Four options:

Just leave it on Match the frequency. Then the period always fits the frequency, and you do not have to think twice. A weekly report shows the last seven days on its own. Done.

The fixed periods are there for special cases. For example, when you want an email every week but always want to see how the last thirty days developed. That smooths out the outliers and shows the trend rather than the day-to-day.

Activating and creating

Two more moves and your report is ready.

First, the "Report active" checkbox. It decides whether the report actually gets sent:

For the standard case, leave the box checked. Leaving it unchecked only makes sense when you want to prepare a report in advance but have it start later. For a campaign launching next month, say.

Second, the click on "Create report". After that your report appears at the top of the list, along with when it goes out next.

Done. From here on, Trustlytics handles the sending. Before you lean back, though, the test send in the next section is worth it.

Test send

Before the report goes out automatically for the first time, send it once as a test. In the list you will find the (Send test) icon next to every report.

Here is what happens, and you should know about it:

After that, Trustlytics shows either a green success message or a red error with a reason. In the second case you know right away what the problem is.

The report list

Once you have created reports, they sit in a table. One row per report, with these columns:

The two columns you really need day to day: "Status" and "Next delivery". Together they answer the question that is otherwise hard to check, namely, whether this report is still running and when it arrives next. A gray status is the most common explanation for why someone has not gotten any mail for weeks.

The four icons in the list

At the far right of every row sit four small icons:

• (Send test): Sends the report right away as a test.
• / (Resume/Pause): Switches the report off or back on. A paused report stays created but does not go out until you start it again.
• (Edit): Loads the report into the form below. You change the fields and click "Save". "Cancel" discards your changes.
• (Delete): Removes the report permanently after a safety prompt. The delivery history stays.

Language

The report goes out in the language you set under Language & region. All recipients get the same language, even when a recipient has a Trustlytics account of their own set to a different language.

Concretely: if your profile is set to English and your agency sits in Quebec, the report still arrives in English.

What is not in the PDF?

A few widgets simply do not work in a printed report because they live on real-time data or on someone interacting with them. Trustlytics leaves these out of the PDF:

• Real-time widgets (live visitor map, real-time stream, live KPI strip)
• Content heatmap (the interactive block map)
• Visitor flow (the interactive path analysis)

If one of those is in your own cockpit, you simply get the PDF without that widget. Everything else looks the way you know it. And the last PDF page lists what was left out. So nothing disappears quietly.

The reason is easy to see: a map of visitors who are on your website right now makes no sense in a PDF from yesterday. And a path analysis lives on you clicking into it.

Rules and limits

Twenty reports sounds like a little, but in practice it is plenty. Anyone who needs more has usually split things too finely. Often one report with several recipients does the job instead of three nearly identical reports side by side.

Tips for good reports

• Use names that say something. "Marketing Monday" beats "Report 3". Otherwise, by the fifth entry in the list, you will not remember which one is which.
• Weekly rather than daily. Daily sounds thorough but gets clicked away after two weeks. And daily swings do not say much anyway, you only spot a pattern over the course of a week.
• One report per audience. Management needs the Executive template, the agency needs the SEO template. One report for everyone means nobody really reads it in the end.
• Add yourself as a recipient. That way you notice right away when nothing arrives or something looks odd. And when a question comes up, you know exactly what the other person is looking at.
• Pick a time that fits the workday. A report that arrives at three in the morning sits under twenty other emails by the time you get in. Seven or eight works considerably better.
• Test it once after creating it. Two minutes now saves you from wondering why nobody got any mail for weeks.

Common mistakes

Five things that most often go wrong during setup:

• Forgetting the "Report active" checkbox. The report is set up cleanly, everything is right, and still nothing ever arrives. In the list it shows a gray "Paused". By far the most common mistake.
• Separating recipients with commas. That field takes one address per line. Use commas or semicolons, and you get an error when saving.
• Phone number without a country code. "212 555 1234" does not work. It needs the international format with a plus sign: +12125551234.
• The template does not fit the data. The E-commerce template stays empty as long as you have not set up any goals. The SEO template stays empty without a connected Google Search Console. The report still comes, just with zeros.
• Not saving after editing. If you load the report into the form with the pencil icon, make changes, and then click away, you lose them. Only "Save" makes the change stick.

Common questions

My report is not arriving. Now what?
Check the list first: is the report set to "Paused"? Is there an error note on the last delivery? Then check the recipient's spam folder, that is where automated emails tend to land. And for SMS: is the SMS provider (ASPSMS) service still running, and are there enough credits?

My report shows zeros everywhere. Is something broken?
Probably not. Trustlytics sends the report even when there is no data at all for the selected period. So the zeros are an honest answer, not an error message. Most common reasons: your website genuinely had no visitors during that period, the tracking code is no longer running, or the template shows numbers that are not being collected on your site at all. The E-commerce template, for example, stays empty as long as you have not set up any goals.

Do my recipients need a Trustlytics account?
No. The report goes out as a perfectly normal email or text message. Your agency, your boss, or your board do not have to sign in anywhere or install anything.

Can I set the delivery down to the minute?
No, only full hours. Trustlytics sends between the hour you set and the next full hour.

When does the first report arrive?
At the next scheduled time that matches your setting. Exactly when that is shows up in the list under "Next delivery". If you do not want to wait that long, send yourself a test with the (Send test) icon.

I am a recipient myself and have a Trustlytics login. Do I get the report in my language?
No. The report always comes in the language of whoever created it. All recipients get the same language.

Can I send the same report by email and SMS at once?
No. Every report has exactly one channel. Create one for each case. That actually has an upside: frequency, recipients, and content can then be set independently. The boss gets her text on Monday, the team gets the detailed email the same day.

What happens if I delete the cockpit that a report is based on?
Then the report would have no meaningful content left. In that case, switch it to a ready-made template or a different cockpit. The fastest route is the pencil icon: edit the report, pick a new source, and save.

What does sending a text message cost?
Trustlytics does not charge anything extra. The costs come straight from the SMS provider (ASPSMS): roughly CHF 0.05 to 0.10 per text, depending on the rate. You can see your credits in the SMS provider (ASPSMS) customer area.

Does my test send count as a real delivery?
The test really does go out to every recipient, but it is not an automated run. The next regular delivery is unaffected and arrives as planned.

I changed a report. Do I have to confirm anything?
Just the click on "Save". After that, the new setting applies from the next delivery onward. When that is due shows up right away in the "Next delivery" column.

Can I send a report to someone outside the company?
Yes, any address is allowed. Just keep in mind that your numbers leave the building with it. For external recipients, a template that shows exactly what that person needs and no more is worth considering.

I cannot click the SMS channel. Why?
Because no SMS provider (ASPSMS) service has been set up yet. That is why the channel shows up but stays grayed out. Set the service up under Services, and after that it can be selected normally.