In the sidebar, you’ll see a few parent reports, such as Pages and Referrers.
These reports cannot be renamed, and changes to them cannot be saved.
Below the parent reports are the custom reports, highlighted here:
These reports can be renamed, edited, and deleted. You can also create as many new custom reports as you want.
Let’s start by looking at how you can create a new report from scratch.
Each parent report includes a plus button next to it that you can click to create a new report.
Let’s say you want to save a new report that always displays country stats for today. You would start by clicking the plus button next to the Geographic report.
This will create and redirect you to a custom report called “New Report.”
To rename the report, click on its title at the top of the page. This will reveal a small popup where you can enter a new title and save it.
Next, since you want to see data from today, you would open up the date picker and click the Today button.
When saving reports, it’s recommended that you always use one of the ten buttons in the date picker, such as Today and Last 7 Days. These apply a relative date so that no matter when you view this report, it always displays recent data, such as from today. If you click on specific days in the calendar, those same days will be reported in the future.
Once you apply your date, you’ll see a warning icon at the top of the page.
This lets you know that you have unsaved changes, which will be lost if you leave the page. You can click the Save button to finalize your changes.
With the report saved, you can revisit it whenever you want to see your geographic traffic from today.
Before we move on, there is one other way to create new reports.
Sometimes, you’ll find yourself editing one of your reports without any intention of saving your changes, but then you uncover some interesting data, and you realize you want to save this as a new report.
For instance, imagine you’re viewing the Blog Posts report when you decide to add a filter to show posts from just one author. You decide to make this into a new report while retaining the Blog Posts report.
You can accomplish this with the Save As button. All you have to do is click the button, enter a title for the new report, and then click the Save as button in the popup.
The original report will be left unedited, and you’ll find your new report listed in the sidebar.
To summarize, if you want to create a new report from scratch, use one of the plus buttons in the sidebar. If you are editing a report and realize it’d make a good new report, use the Save As button.
Everything you can change in the interface gets saved in your reports. This includes the following:
Date range
Table column visibility
Filters
Grouping (Geographic & Device reports only)
Table sorting
Chart metrics
Chart interval (hourly, daily, etc.)
Reordering your custom reports is simple.
All you have to do is click on a report title and drag and drop it into its new location.
When you visit the Analytics menu, you’ll be taken to the Pages report by default. If you want to change this, start by navigating to the report you want to make the default. Then, click the Make default button in the report header.
You’ll see a star show up in the sidebar next to the report’s name like this:
Now, whenever you visit the Analytics menu, you’ll be redirected to this default report.
If you’d like to delete a report, start by navigating to it via the sidebar.
Once viewing the report, click on the trashcan button at the top right of the page.
This will reveal a small popup asking for you to confirm the deletion. Click the Delete report button and the report will be removed from your site.
