Reports

A report is a named, permissioned bundle of saved queries. Run it and QBO executes each query, saves the results as files (usually Excel workbooks), and delivers them to the people who need them. Because reports run against the same records, statuses, and security as the rest of QBO, the numbers in a report match what users see on screen.

Reports cover four jobs:

• On-demand and scheduled runs. Users request a report, fill in its prompts (such as a date range), and run it once, weekly, or monthly.
• Delivery. Results arrive by email as secure download links that require signing in, or are copied to a storage location such as Amazon S3 or an sFTP folder for a client or a data warehouse.
• Ad hoc reports. Power users build a query against any module, preview the results, and save it as a new report without a release.
• Dashboards. Charts and tables over a module’s data, with filters and prompts, placed on a landing page.

Report runs are queued and executed on an application server, so a slow or heavy report doesn’t affect people working in QBO.

Key concepts

Concept	In QBO	What it does
Report	Report	The named bundle. Roles are granted access to it; it can name a default delivery contact.
Report query	ReportQuery	One saved query in the report. Each query produces one output file: an Excel workbook of the results, or a document generated from a document template.
Report request	ReportRequest	One user’s run of a report, with its prompt values, an optional schedule, and recipients. The output files are stored on the request.
Dashboard	a Report with chart queries	Charts and tables over one module, built from its dimensions and filters.

AI · built in

In the ad hoc report builder, describe the data you want in plain English and AI drafts a read-only SQL query for you to review, run, and save. QBO checks the draft is a single SELECT and validates it against the database before you see it; if it can’t produce a valid query, it returns its best draft with a warning.

Choose your view

Use the buttons under the page title. End user covers requesting, scheduling, and receiving reports; Power user covers building reports, ad hoc queries, and dashboards; Developer covers the API, including AI query generation.

Report output files are ordinary documents, so the storage options in Document Management apply to them too.