Report Builder for MSP’s

  • Home
  • Report Builder for MSP’s
  • Company ConnectWise LLP
  • Date 25 February, 2024
  • Role UX Owner

Description

ASIO Report Builder for MSPs empowers Managed Service Providers to create, customize, and automate professional reports with ease. Design branded reports using drag-and-drop components, visualize key metrics, and schedule automated delivery to customers and stakeholders. The intuitive workflow helps MSPs transform operational data into clear, actionable insights while reducing manual reporting effort.

Project Background

BrightGauge’s Report Builder is widely used by Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to create operational and client-facing reports. While it provides reliable report scheduling, dashboards, and KPI tracking, the overall report creation experience has fallen behind modern reporting platforms.

Competitors such as Explo, Salesforce, and other embedded analytics solutions have introduced more intuitive report-building experiences with AI-assisted workflows, flexible layouts, richer visualizations, advanced filtering, and self-service customization. These capabilities enable users to build reports faster, explore data more effectively, and personalize reports without technical expertise.

In contrast, BrightGauge’s current Report Builder presents several usability challenges, including limited layout flexibility, constrained visualization options, manual configuration workflows, and a less modern editing experience. These limitations increase the time required to build reports and make it more difficult for users to create polished, client-ready documents.

The goal of this redesign project is to modernize the BrightGauge Report Builder by improving usability, reducing report creation time, and introducing a more flexible, intuitive, and scalable reporting experience. The redesigned solution focuses on empowering MSP users with streamlined workflows, enhanced customization, richer visualizations, and a cleaner user interface while maintaining the simplicity and reliability that BrightGauge users expect.

Challenges

Through competitor analysis, product evaluation, and workflow assessment, several usability challenges were identified in the existing BrightGauge Report Builder:

  • Complex report creation workflow that requires multiple manual steps to build even simple reports.

  • Limited layout flexibility, making it difficult to create modern, client-friendly report designs.

  • Basic visualization options with fewer chart types and limited customization compared to modern reporting platforms.

  • No AI-assisted report generation, requiring users to manually select datasets, filters, and visualizations.

  • Weak self-service capabilities, making report creation challenging for non-technical users.

  • Limited filtering and grouping controls, reducing the ability to perform deeper data analysis.

  • Inconsistent editing experience, with report settings, styling, and data configuration spread across multiple panels.

  • Minimal report personalization, including limited branding, themes, and reusable templates.

  • Time-consuming report maintenance, as users often recreate similar reports instead of reusing configurable templates.

  • Lack of real-time guidance and recommendations, forcing users to rely on experience or documentation to build effective reports.

  • Less intuitive drag-and-drop interactions, resulting in slower report assembly and editing.

  • Outdated visual design, which does not align with modern SaaS reporting experiences offered by competitors like Salesforce and Explo.

The Solution

To address the usability and flexibility issues identified in the existing Report Builder, I redesigned the experience around a simplified, modular, and user-centric workflow. The new design reduces report creation time while giving MSP users greater control over report customization and layout.

Key Design Solutions

  • Simplified three-step workflow
    • Organized the experience into Design → Preview with Data → Review & Send, allowing users to focus on one task at a time.
  • Centralized report configuration
    • Consolidated report settings, filters, sorting, and modules into a dedicated left-side configuration panel, reducing navigation between multiple screens.
  • Drag-and-drop report composition
    • Enabled users to quickly build reports by adding text, images, page breaks, and gauges through reusable modules.
  • Live report canvas
    • Introduced a real-time report preview where users can instantly see layout changes, edit components inline, and rearrange content without leaving the page.
  • Improved gauge management
    • Added search functionality and categorized gauges, making it faster to locate and insert KPIs into reports.
  • Inline editing experience
    • Users can edit, reposition, duplicate, or remove report components directly from the canvas, minimizing clicks and context switching.
  • Flexible filtering and sorting
    • Centralized datasource selection, folders, creator filters, and sorting options for quicker report configuration.
  • Reusable templates
    • Added Save as Template functionality to help MSPs standardize recurring reports and reduce repetitive work.
  • Cleaner visual hierarchy
    • Redesigned spacing, typography, and component grouping to improve readability and reduce cognitive load during report creation.
  • Modern workspace
    • Created a distraction-free editing environment with a larger report canvas, allowing users to focus on report content rather than tool navigation.
  • Scalable modular architecture
    • Designed the interface to support future enhancements such as AI-assisted report generation, advanced visualization widgets, collaborative editing, and additional report components without major workflow changes.

Expected Outcomes

  • Faster report creation with fewer manual steps.
  • Reduced learning curve for new users.
  • Improved discoverability of reporting features.
  • More professional and customizable client reports.
  • Increased productivity through reusable templates and inline editing.
  • A modern reporting experience aligned with leading competitors such as Salesforce and Explo while preserving BrightGauge’s simplicity for MSP users

New had happen unable uneasy. Drawings can followed improved out sociable not. Earnestly so do instantly pretended. See general few civilly amiable pleased account carried. Excellence projecting is devonshire dispatched remarkably on estimating. Side in so life past. Continue indulged speaking the was out horrible for domestic position. Seeing rather her you not esteem men settle genius excuse. Deal say over you age from. Comparison new ham melancholy son themselves.