A report is a PDF document with numbers for a selected period that you either download or have sent to you automatically by email. Before any PDF is created, though, you first create report settings in gas: you describe what the report is called, what period it covers, which profiles and which sections it should contain and how it should look. One set of settings then produces one file (for a one-off report) or a series of files (for an automatic one). This is the longest form in the whole application, so this article guides you through it field by field.
Before you start
- You have to see the Reports item in the left menu. If it is not there, reports are not part of your customer account plan. To have it added, write through the contact form.
- Report settings can be created and edited by the Administrator and User roles. Only an Administrator may start generation and delete a report.
- The profiles the numbers are taken from (a Facebook page, an Instagram profile, an ad account, a YouTube channel, a Google Analytics property) have to be connected to the customer account. Without a connected profile you cannot add a section for that network at all. You will find the overview in Settings → Customer account → Linked accounts, and connecting is described in the article Linked accounts of the customer account.
- If you want a logo in the report, upload it in Settings → Customer account → Print settings. The allowed format is SVG. You can also upload it directly in the report form, but it is a global setting for the whole customer account: changing the logo affects all reports.
- Every successfully generated report counts towards the annual limit of your plan. You can see how many you have and how many you have used in Settings → Customer account → Subscription. Runs that end with an error do not count towards the limit.
Procedure
- Open Reports in the left menu.
- Click New settings in the top right. The New report settings page opens.
- Fill in Report name. This is the name you will find the report under in the list, for example Monthly overview. The field is required.
- In the Run type field choose One-off (a report for one specific period, generated right after saving) or Automatic (gas then generates it repeatedly on its own and sends it by email).
- For One-off, choose the period type in the Period field: Week, Month, Quarter or Year. Depending on your choice, the fields Month of year and Year, Quarter of year and Year, just Year, or, for a week, a calendar appear below, in which you click any day of the chosen week (gas turns it into the whole week from Monday to Sunday). Only periods that ended at least three days ago are offered.
- For Automatic, choose Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly or Yearly in the Schedule field. Optionally tick Include previous period: the first run then also gives you a report for the period that came before.
- The optional Graph detail level field determines the steps the curves in the graphs are drawn in: Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Quarterly. If you leave it on Automatic, gas chooses the step itself according to the length of the period. The field is only shown when there is more than one option for the chosen period.
- Only for an automatic report, fill in the Email delivery card. In the Recipients field choose All customer account users, or Selected users and then tick in the User accounts list the people the report should go to. For a user account that has turned delivery off itself, there is a note in brackets saying "currently unsubscribed from report emails".
- In the Title page settings card you can fill in Title and Description. Both are optional and appear on the first page of the PDF.
- In the Layout settings card, tick what should appear in the Header (logo, company name, date) and in the Footer (logo, company name, date, page number). Below them you can turn on Table of contents (an overview page with the list of sections and their order) and Overview of linked profiles and platforms (a page listing everything the customer account has connected). Next comes the Customer account logo card, where you upload the logo right away.
- In the Report sections card, put together the content of the report. The procedure is described in the next part of the article.
- Click Save settings. The button is at the top right and again below the form, and both do the same thing.
Report sections: what will be in the report and in what order
A section is one chapter of the report, typically one network. A new report starts with a single Summary section.
- Above the list of sections (and again below it) there is a drop-down menu with section names. Select a section in it and click Add section. The menu only contains sections that can be added at that moment.
- In the added section, choose in the Profile field the profile whose numbers should be loaded.
- In the pair of columns Available subsections and Selected subsections, move the items by clicking. Clicking an item on the left adds it to the report, clicking an item on the right sends it back.
- Drag the section by the icon with three horizontal lines to put it in the right place. The order of sections in the form matches the order of chapters in the PDF.
A few more things worth knowing:
- Sections are split into Enabled sections and Disabled sections. The eye icon turns a section off or on, the bin icon deletes it. A disabled section moves to the end of the list and does not make it into the PDF, but it keeps its settings, so you can switch it back on any time. Only enabled sections can be moved.
- You can add as many sections of one network as you have profiles connected for that network. Each section then has its own profile.
- If you choose a profile in the Profile field that is already used in another section of the same network, gas swaps the two profiles. That way the same profile does not appear twice in the report.
- Subsections are not only metrics, there are also content blocks such as TOP posts, Posts list, TOP videos, TOP pins or Campaign list. What each subsection contains is described in the article Report sections and their content.
- Summary behaves differently from the other sections: it has no profile selection, because it adds up numbers for all profiles connected to the customer account. It always fits on one page, each selected metric is one tile and you have to select at least three. It can only be added to a report once.
- The Tourism section is only visible to customer accounts with a destination set. In it you choose the Area (Region, DMO or Municipality) and then the specific area in the Selection field. There can be several of these sections in a report, each for a different area.
Report language
The report form has no field for the language. The report is saved in the language set for the user account that last saved the settings. An automatic report then stays in that language for all following runs, no matter what language the recipients set for themselves.
If you want the report in a different language, first switch the interface language in Settings → User profile → Profile in the Language field, and only then open the report and save it again. Czech, English and German are available.
For a one-off report that has already been generated, you cannot go back to the form. Use the button with the two-sheets icon in the list, which makes a copy of the report (it adds the word "copy" to the name), and save that copy in the language you want. The copy is generated right after saving and counts towards the annual report limit.
A draft report and coming back to it
gas keeps saving a new, not yet saved report as you go, so you do not lose work in progress. When you leave the form and open Reports → New settings again, the fields are filled in the way you left them and a yellow bar Draft settings have been restored appears at the top with the text "We are picking up where you left off. Do you want to reset the form?" and a Reset button.
- The draft report is saved in your browser on this computer, not on the server. You will not see it on another computer, in another browser or in an incognito window.
- One draft report per customer account is kept. When you start writing another new report, it overwrites the previous one.
- The draft report does not appear in the report list and nothing is generated from it until you save it.
- The draft report disappears when you save the form, when you click Cancel, or when you click Reset in the yellow bar.
If the yellow bar appears for a report you have not started writing anything in, click Reset. The form then loads from the saved report settings.
What gas will not let you save
After you click Save settings, gas goes through the whole form. If something is missing, the settings are not saved, the page scrolls to the first invalid field and that field turns red. Errors that do not belong to a single field are listed in red above the form.
| What is missing or wrong | What gas says |
|---|---|
| Report name | Enter a report name. |
| Period for a one-off report | Select the report time range. |
| The period ended less than three days ago | The selected period must end at least 3 days before generation so that complete data is available. |
| Schedule for an automatic report | Select the generation frequency. |
| Recipient with the Selected users option | Select at least one recipient. |
| Profile in a network section | Select a profile. |
| Metrics in a section | Add at least one metric. |
| Fewer than three metrics in the Summary section | Select at least 3 metrics for the summary. |
| A report without a single section | Select at least one report section. |
| An automatic report in an account with no user account with an email address | A scheduled report requires at least one customer user account with an email address. |
| Area in the Tourism section | Select the entity type. / Select the entity. |
Why gas checks this:
- A report without a section would be an empty file. Sections are the only content that makes it into the PDF.
- A section without a profile does not say whose numbers should be loaded. gas cannot guess whether it should take the first connected profile or another one.
- A section without metrics would be an empty chapter with a heading in the report.
- Summary is made of tiles across the whole page, and with two metrics the page would look unfinished, so the minimum is three.
- An automatic report without a recipient would have nobody to go to.
- The period has to be closed. Numbers for days that have just ended are still being calculated on the platforms' side. For Facebook, Instagram and Meta Ads they are considered final three days after the end of the period, for the other networks one day after the end of the period. That is why the form only offers periods that ended at least three days ago, and a report for them comes out the same even if you generated it again a month later.
What happens next
A one-off report is queued for generation as soon as you save it. gas shows the green message "Report generation has been queued." and takes you back to the Reports list. The report gets the status Running and the list keeps refreshing on its own. Once it is done, the status changes to Ready to download and a blue button with a down arrow appears on the right, which downloads the PDF. You will also learn that it is finished from a notification in the application, that is under the bell in the top bar.
An automatic report has the status Waiting to run after saving, and you see Next run with a date and time in its row. gas generates it after 9 a.m. on the third day after the period ends and sends it by email to the chosen recipients. Finished runs are then offered for download directly under the report name, period by period.
Other things that are good to know:
- Generation runs in the background. You do not have to stay on the page or leave the application open.
- You will also find all generated PDFs later in Reports → Archive.
- Every recipient can turn email delivery off themselves in Settings → User profile → Report subscriptions. Details are described in the article Report delivery and recipients.
- You edit an automatic report with the pencil icon button in the report list. A one-off report cannot be edited after saving: the button with the two-sheets icon makes a copy of it, which you open as a new form, edit and save.
- Only the Administrator role may delete a report. Deleting also removes all generated PDFs and the run history, and the action cannot be undone.
Common problems
Clicking Save settings does nothing
There is an error in the form. gas scrolls you to the first invalid field and outlines it in red, and errors that concern the whole form are listed in red at the top. Go through the form from top to bottom, most often the name, the profile in one of the sections or the metrics in a newly added section are missing.
The report was saved, but an Access denied message appeared
Only the Administrator role may start generation. The report settings were saved anyway, you will find them in the Reports list. Ask the customer account administrator to start it, they click the green button with the play icon next to the report.
The network I want in the report is missing from the section menu
A section can only be added for a network that has at least one profile connected to the customer account. Check Settings → Customer account → Linked accounts. If the profile is not there, it has to be connected first, which is described by the articles in the Connecting services category.
The Add section button is grey
It means there is nothing left to add: all sections the customer account is entitled to are already in the form and all connected profiles are taken. Once you delete one of the sections, the menu fills up again.
An orange message pops up after clicking Add section
This is how gas explains why the section could not be added. "This section can only be added once." concerns the Summary, "No profiles are available for this section." means a network that is not connected, and "All profiles for this network are already in use." means every connected profile already has its own section.
The profile I need is not in the Profile field
The menu only contains profiles connected to this customer account. If the profile is connected somewhere else or not at all, it will not be in the menu. Check Settings → Customer account → Linked accounts and, if needed, ask the administrator who connects that profile.
I selected a profile and the profile in another section changed by itself
That is intentional. One profile can only be in the report once, so when you assign it to another section, gas swaps the two profiles. If you want a different split, set both sections again.
I cannot select the period that has just ended
Only periods that ended at least three days ago are offered. Until then the platforms are still calculating the numbers and the report would not match what you see later. Wait until the period "ripens", then it appears in the menu.
A LIMIT_EXCEEDED or Annual report limit reached message appeared
The customer account has used up the number of reports its plan allows per year. Only successfully generated reports from the last 365 days count towards the limit, so it frees up on its own over time. You can see the status in Settings → Customer account → Subscription, and to upgrade your plan write through the contact form.
The report stays in the Running status for a long time
It can take a while, gas waits until the numbers for the period are complete on the platforms' side, and if the data is not ready yet, it repeats the attempt later on its own. You can close the page, the list refreshes when you come back. If the status lasts more than a day or changes to Error, write through the contact form and include the report name and the period.
The report arrived, but one of the sections is missing from it
The profile of that section was unlinked at the time of generation or its access to the network expired. gas skips such a section so that the rest of the report is delivered, and lists the skipped profiles on the diagnostic page of the report. This is covered in detail in the article When a report is missing or incomplete.
The report is in a different language than I expected
The report carries the language of the user account that last saved the settings. Switch the language in Settings → User profile → Profile and save the report again, and for a one-off report make a copy and save that.
There is nothing in the Report templates menu
The Report templates button is prepared for pre-built layouts in the future, but no template is available yet and the menu says "No templates are available yet." So put the report together by hand, or duplicate one of the existing ones.
I cannot see the Reports item in the left menu at all
Reports are not part of your customer account plan, or you are switched into a different customer account than you think. Check the customer account switch in the top bar and the subscription status, and to upgrade the plan write through the contact form.
The draft form did not appear on another computer
A draft report is saved in the browser you were writing it in, not on the server. On another device, in another browser or in an incognito window gas has nowhere to load it from. So save the report even if it is not perfect yet, you can edit it later.