Purpose: This article explains how reporting works in Administrate and how to navigate the reporting documentation.
Administrate’s Reporting Engine allows you to build custom reports by linking fields across your Administrate database. Reports can support a wide range of operational, marketing, and management needs.
Typical uses for reporting include:
- tracking course and event performance
- building marketing or contact lists
- analyzing learner activity and attendance
- reviewing financial and booking trends
- exporting data for external tools
How reporting works
Reports are created using the Reporting Engine, which allows you to:
- choose a base entity (what you want to report on)
- define filter conditions to select the records you want
- choose output columns to display the information
- optionally group or sort the results
- export results for use outside Administrate
Because the reporting engine can access data across the Administrate database, reports can combine information from events, contacts, accounts, bookings, finance, and other areas of the system.
Report structure
Every report is built around a simple structure:
Entity → Filters → Output → Results
- Entity defines what each row represents
- Filters determine which records are included
- Output columns define what data is displayed
- Results are the final dataset you can view or export
Understanding this structure makes it easier to troubleshoot reports and design them correctly from the start.
How report rows work
The selected entity determines what each row in your report represents.
- Events – one row per event
- Delegates – one row per learner registration
- Invoices – one row per financial record
This means that the same data can appear differently depending on the entity you choose. For example, a single event may appear once in an Events report, but multiple times in a Delegates report (once per learner).
Important behaviors
- Exports are snapshots: exported reports reflect the results shown at the time the report is run.
- Relationships affect row counts: repeated rows may reflect valid one-to-many relationships, not data errors.
- Permissions matter: you must have access to the entities used in a report to view or run it.
How to use this documentation
If you are new to reporting, start with the report creation guide.
- To create your first report, see Create a report.
- If you need to understand how reporting data is structured, see Reporting Engine entities.
- For deeper explanation of reporting terminology, permissions, and advanced behavior, see Reporting Engine Reference.
- For a conceptual explanation of how reporting data connects across the system, see Understanding Reporting Data Relationships.
Reporting Engine guides
The following guides explain the steps involved in building and customizing reports.
- Create a report
- Edit report filters (Filter Conditions)
- Add or change output columns
- Using sections to group reporting results
- Sort reporting results (Ordering)
- Export report results
- Reporting Engine entities
Specialized reporting
Some reporting features apply to specific Administrate functionality.
Common reporting pitfalls
- Choosing the wrong entity: this changes the structure of your results and may hide required fields.
- Misinterpreting row counts: more rows does not always mean more data—it may reflect the level of detail.
- Overcomplicating filters: complex logic without grouping can produce unexpected results.