Analyze and report using desktop tools

Cleverbridge desktop reporting includes predefined reports in Commerce Assistant (CA) and customizable reports in Business Intelligence (BI). Use CA for established operational views and BI when you need to combine supported measures and dimensions, analyze longer periods, or drill into results.

Reports saved as BI bookmarks can also be opened from Subscription Commerce Manager (SCM).

Differences in reported data

CA and BI use different reporting technologies and data models. As a result, the same business activity can appear differently in the two tools. The most important differences are:

• Time delay: Due to the differences in technical infrastructure of CA and BI, changes made in CA, such as to a product, promotion, or MVT campaign, affect reports in BI after a delay of one to two days.

• Different handling of returns: CA and BI have different underlying views how they record orders. BI has cash-flow-based reporting, which means that revenue and returns (refunds and chargebacks) are assigned to the period in which they were incurred. Purchases and refunds are counted as separate incidents. In CA, purchases and refunds are linked, which means that if a purchase has been refunded, CA neutralizes the revenue, and it's removed from the report.

  Example

  In January, an order of €29,95 was paid, and the revenue was assigned to the period in which it occurred. This means that the revenue for January was increased by €29,95. If in March the order is refunded:

  • BI will not reduce the revenue from January, but instead it will reduce the revenue in March.
  • CA will cancel the order from the report as if it had never occurred.

• Sum rounding: CA and BI can round aggregated values differently. These differences are typically minor.

The following table provides an overview of all differences between the CA and BI analysis and reporting:

Metric	Commerce Assistant	Business Intelligence
Types of reports	Only pre-defined reports	User-designed reports with any combination of measures and dimensions
Reporting time	Reporting on months of data may require some time	Fast reporting on years of data
Data drilling	No drilldown of data	Possible drilldown into layers of data for more detailed results
Reporting on x-parameters	No special configuration required	Prior configuration in Commerce Assistant Revenue Tracking Setup tool required
Reporting on product groups	Supported	Not supported
Reporting on recommendations	Supported	Not supported
Currency reporting basis	Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and the currency selected in the Payout and clearing currency field in Account Setup	Own definition of currency and time zone
Revenue settings	Reporting based on net value	Reporting based on own defined settings, such as by gross, net, or only tax

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Explore this section

CA reporting tools

You can build default reports in Commerce Assistant (CA), which provides over 250 comprehensive real-time reports.

BI reporting tools

Business Intelligence (BI) provides advanced reporting capabilities that enable you to quickly analyze what is happening in your online business.

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