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Exploring Data & Building Custom Premium Reports

    Explores are where you go to build your own custom reports from scratch. You choose exactly which data fields to include, apply filters to narrow it down, visualize it the way you want, and save the result for future use.

    In This Article

    Who Can Use This Feature?

    • Who Can Use This Feature?

      • Pike13 Plans: ✅ Premium, ❌ Advanced, ❌ Essential
      • Staff Access: Dependent on staff reporting permissions

      If you believe you should have access to Premium reporting or if you are interested in adding Premium reporting, please contact help@pike13.com.

    How to Open an Explore

    There are three ways to get into an Explore:

    From the Explores tab: On the Premium Reporting home screen, click Explores in the left sidebar. Choose a subject area such as Clients & Staff (enrollments, profiles) or Financial (transactions, payroll).

    From a Look: Click the Gear icon on any saved Look and select Explore from Here.

    From a Dashboard: Hover over any dashboard tile, click the three-dot icon (⋮), and select Explore from Here.

    Warning -  Explores are temporary until you save them. You can experiment freely without affecting any pre-built reports or other users.

     Tip - Don't Start from Scratch
    The fastest way to build a custom report is to open a pre-built Look and click Explore from Here from the Gear icon. This launches an Explore pre-loaded with the Look's existing fields and filters, giving you a ready-made starting point you can adjust rather than building from zero. 

    Understanding Dimensions vs. Measures

    Think of an Explore as a sandbox where you mix and match two types of data fields:

    • Dimensions (shown in grey) — Categories used to group your data, such as Client Name, Date, or Plan Type.
    • Measures (shown in orange) — Quantitative values like totals, counts, or averages, such as Enrollment Count or Total Revenue.

    Building Your Report

    1. Select your Dimensions and Measures from the left panel. Use the search bar to find specific fields, or browse All Fields.
    2. Click Filters to narrow your results (e.g., "Date is in the last 30 days").
    3. Click Run to generate the data.
    4. Optionally choose a Visualization type to display the results as a chart, graph, or other visual.

    Tip -Press Ctrl+K (Windows) or Cmd+K (Mac) to clear all fields and start fresh.

    Organizing Your Data

    Sorting — Click any column header to sort the data. Hold Shift while clicking to sort by multiple columns.

    Moving Columns — Click and drag a column header to reorder it. Click Run to reflect the new order in the visualization.

    Pivoting — If your table is too long, you can pivot a dimension to turn its values into horizontal columns. Click Pivot next to the dimension name. You must have at least one unpivoted dimension and one measure for this to work.

    Removing Fields — Click the field in the left panel to deselect it, or click the Gear icon on the column header and select Remove.

    Summarizing with Totals

    To add column totals, check the Totals box in the upper right and click Run. Row totals are also available if you have a pivot applied.

    A few things to keep in mind about totals:

    • Totals only work for Measures (numbers), not Dimensions (like names or categories).
    • Unique Counts — If counting unique clients, a person appearing in multiple categories is only counted once in the total.
    • Filters & Row Limits — Totals often reflect the full dataset before filters or row limits are applied, which can make them appear higher than the sum of visible rows.

    Tip - Need a total for only what's visible on screen? Use a table calculation: sum(${view_name.field_name}) for a column total, or sum(pivot_row(${view_name.field_name})) for a row total.

    Drilling into the Details

    Every number in a report is clickable. Click any value (e.g., "4" in an enrollment count) to open a Details window showing exactly which records make up that number.

    From the Details window you can:

    • Click a client's Full Name to open their profile directly in Pike13.
    • Click Explore from Here to open a new Explore using those records as a starting point.
    • Click Download Results to export the detail data.

    Creating Visualizations

    Once your data is ready, click the Visualization tab to add a chart or graph:

    1. Click the icon for the chart type you want — bar, line, pie, table, and more. Click … to see additional options.
    2. Click Edit to customize the visualization — adjust axis labels, colors, series types, and more.
    3. To hide a column from the chart without removing it from the data table, click the Gear icon on that column header and select Hide from Visualization.
    4. To fill in missing dates or values (useful for time-based charts), click the Gear icon on the date dimension and select Fill in Missing Dates.

    Combining chart types — You can layer multiple visualization types on a single chart (e.g., a line overlaid on a bar chart). Go to Edit → Series and change the Type for each individual series.

    Multiple Y-axes — To display two different scales (e.g., Revenue on the left, Count on the right), go to Edit → Y tab and drag axes to the desired position.