Understanding Individual and Cohort Report Building

Individual vs Cohort Reports

Individual and Cohort reports are built by merging a boilerplate Microsoft Word document with text and scores from the system. 

• Individual reports are for a single response and are usually produced at the end of a respondent completing a response. They can be available for immediate download and/or emailing to the respondent and others.  Reports can include Benchmarking and Team data.  

A range of template reports is available for you to re-brand and adapt to your requirements here.  These templates can be used for either Individual or Cohort reports.

• Cohort reports are for multiple responses in one report.  Cohort reports can also include Benchmarking Data. 
  • Cohorts reports can be initiated automatically from Cohorts defined in the Cohort Initiations functionality. 
  • They can also be initiated manually at any time from the Reports Tab in the Assessment Settings, or using the Cohort Report Manager.

The articles listed below provide the detail of the merge strings available to build the feedback or cohort report and assumes you have already read and understood the article above.

How Merge Strings are constructed

1. The Brilliant Assessments Merge Manager Word Add-in is included in your trial or subscription. It is the recommended method of creating and maintaining merge strings in your template document.
2. If you can not use the Merge Manager for any reason, the strings can be constructed in your document  
   1. There are around 35 separate Merge Strings in the system.  Merge strings specify the type of data that is to be merged into the document.  They always have curly {} brackets around them.
   2. Parameters specify the data to be selected and options for how it is displayed Parameters are always surrounded by square [] brackets.  If there are no parameters required use the square brackets with no space []. 
   3. Merge Strings and Parameters are case sensitive and there must be no spaces except between parameters within Square brackets e.g. {Bar[SectionNo=All Height=200]}
   4. Where your merge string returns text into the report, the text will be shown in the style and format that the merge string is in.  If, for example, you wanted the score to be returned in red and bold, you would color and bold the merge string.  This can be overridden by the formatting within the merge string itself.

Important Tips for Creating a great Word Template for your reporting:

1. Consider starting with one of our Sample Report Templates
2. Wherever possible use the Styles feature of Word to set the format of text.   This ensures consistency.
3. Place images inside a Word table cell.  That way Word holds its position relative to the table.  As the table gets pushed down we then insert the text above and the image moves down correctly too.
4. Avoid text boxes for the same reason.  If they overlay an image ensure that the image is in a table cell.
5. The best format for images is .png.  Some compressed .jpg files have issues with the function we use to create PDF's. 
6. The Word document must be initially created in Word (PC or Mac).  It must not be converted from another tool. 
7. Avoid using track changes or markups on your report template word document as they show up when generated as a PDF.

Merge Strings Available

Merge Strings Available for Reports and Dashboards