Choosing between standard reporting and modern reporting

This topic provides guidance on when to use modern reporting for some or all of your reporting requirements, and highlights the unique capabilities of modern reports. It also notes the features that are currently only available in standard reports.

Note: This information will be updated regularly as new features are added to modern reports.

Modern reporting represents the next generation of reporting and analytics on the Alida platform. It offers immediate benefits in terms of features, performance, and usability.

Modern reports do not include all of the features available in standard reports, but features that address the most common use cases have been prioritized, with more coming. You may find that modern reporting already includes the features you rely on, and also includes useful enhancements not available in standard reports that you want to take advantage of.

New features and capabilities in modern reporting

The following features set modern reports apart from standard reports:

  • Improved performance. Modern reports have significantly improved performance and can handle much larger data sets compared to standard reports. If you are reporting on complex surveys with a large number of responses, you will see noticeable improvements in speed and responsiveness as you work with the report.
  • Improved user experience. Modern reports have an updated user interface, and a modern look and feel with streamlined workflows. The user experience has been improved, and you will find it quicker and easier to complete your reporting tasks.

    You have the ability to expand, collapse, and rearrange report tiles, and build filters. Modern reports also included new data preparation features, including the ability to recode single choice responses to numbers, and to select from a variety of calculations (average, min, max, standard deviation, etc.) to apply to Number questions.

  • Generative AI integration. Enhanced generative AI features are integrated into modern reports that extract nuanced topics and provide human-quality sentiment analysis for open-ended survey responses. The results are displayed in a crosstab, and you can drill-down to see the responses and the associated sentiment. This enables you to see what a particular segment is saying about a topic of interest, and quickly gain insights from large volumes of text responses.
  • Streamlined data visualization. Crosstabs with banners and nested banners provide an intuitive and powerful way to view and compare results. You will find it easier to perform your data analysis because you no longer need to switch between different views.
  • Comprehensive reports. Qualitative and quantitative responses are combined and can be analyzed in the same report. You can discover insights faster when you can view data side-by-side, and drill-down into sentiment analysis data to view individual open-ended responses.
  • TURF analysis. TURF analysis is a new type of analysis only available in modern reports. You can perform TURF analysis on Multiple Choice questions to determine the best combination of options to reach the most customers.

Determining your reporting needs

Review the statements in the diagram below to determine if modern reports meet your reporting needs today.

The sections below provide detailed information about each of the numbered items in the diagram to help you decide whether modern reports will meet your needs today, or if you need to continue using standard reports for some or all of your reporting requirements at this time.

1. What question types are you reporting on?

Are only supported question types used for data collection?

Modern reporting currently supports a subset of the question types available in Surveys. These represent the most commonly used question types, and a majority of surveys only use these question types.

The following question types are supported in modern reporting:

  • Single Choice
  • Single Choice Grid
  • Multiple Choice
  • Multiple Choice Grid
  • Rating
  • Net Promoter Score
  • Short Answer
  • Long Answer
  • Number

If you use question types that are not supported, such as Allocation and Rank Order, in your survey and you want to report on these questions, you need to use standard reports.

If you have unsupported question types in your survey, but you are not interested in reporting on any of them, you have the option to use modern reports. The unsupported questions will be added to the new report automatically with a message indicating that they are not supported yet, and you can remove these tiles from the report.

2. Do you need to perform statistical analysis?

Significance testing and weighting are the two main statistical tools available in standard reporting. These two tools are not yet available in modern reporting, but are scheduled for implementation in the near future. In the meantime, continue to use standard reporting for surveys that require weighting or significance testing to be applied.

Note: These features are now available to early access program (EAP) participants. For information on joining the EAP, contact your Customer Success Manager.

3. What kinds of data preparation do you need?

Are filters and banners sufficient for data preparation?

Filters

Filtering in modern reporting is similar to filtering in standard reporting. However, modern reports have two important filtering enhancements:

  • You can add filter criteria based on text values. This enables you to filter for responses that contain a particular word or phrase.
  • You can add filter criteria based on Date questions or Date profile variables. This allows you to filter on birth date, and other date-based criteria.

If you need to filter questions based on questions from another survey, this feature is currently only supported in standard reports.

Banners

Banners in modern reports match and extend the functionality of subgroups in standard reports.

Modern reporting includes the following enhancements to banners:

  • Multiple banners can be viewed side-by-side in the same crosstab. This makes it easier to compare them and view differences. For example, you can add a Gender banner with a Demographic banner next to it. Subgroups in standard reports cannot be combined in this way. In standard reports you need to select subgroups one at a time, which makes comparison difficult.
  • Banners can be nested, allowing for more granular analysis. For example, you can nest a Demographic banner within the Gender banner to view results for very specific segments such as Male users that are 65+.
  • The user interface for creating banners enables you to quickly add banners and nested banners, drag-and-drop to reorder them, and preview the layout of the crosstabs. This contrasts with standard reports which requires that you remove and re-add subgroups if you want to reorder them.

If you need to add banners based on questions from another survey, this feature is currently only supported for subgroups in standard reports.

Incorporating external data sources

In modern reports, you can enrich your report data by incorporating profile variables.

The ability to add questions from another survey, which is available in standard reports, is not currently supported in modern reports.

Post-processing questions

Modern reporting includes a new, frequently requested recode type. The Convert to Numbers recode allows you to convert categorical values to numbers. It can be used with single choice, single choice grid, and rating question types to convert the answers to numeric values.

The conversion performed by this recode type is not possible in standard reports. Survey authors must set the value in the survey using survey logic or scripting to capture the numeric values needed for reporting.

In modern reports, modifying individual responses is not supported yet. The standard report features that allow you to merge, merge and append, and edit the text of answers in subgroups are not currently available in modern reports.

4. How do you want to visualize the results?

Are tables and nested crosstabs sufficient for visualization?

In modern reports, the primary ways your results are displayed are in tables and crosstabs. Tables provide a simple view of summary data, such as the average or other metrics for a Number question. Crosstabs summarize more complex information, such as the results of a customer satisfaction survey segmented by gender and demographic.

Banners are used to segment the results in crosstabs, and banners can be displayed either side-by-side or as nested banners (for example, with the demographic answers nested under each of the gender answers).

Multiple banners side-by-side:

Nested banners:

In standard reports, the subgroup feature that is equivalent to banners restricts you to selecting one subgroup at a time, making it difficult to make comparisons between subgroups.

Modern reports also provides you with the capability to view all of the information for your analysis in a single report. The following types of information are displayed within modern reports:

  • For Open End questions you can view the original response text for Open End questions, Net Promoter Score follow-up responses, and Choice question Other/Specify answers.
  • Sentiment analysis summary results and responses. Summary results are displayed in a crosstab organized by the topics that the AI has identified in the responses. You can also view the text of each response analyzed and see the topics identified and the sentiment assigned.

In standard reports, you must export response data in order to view it, and sentiment analysis requires that you create a separate report.

Modern reports also provides a significantly improved user experience. You can add text tiles to your report to provide context, explanatory information, or links to other resources.

Additionally, you can expand and collapse tiles, and move them around to present information in the order you want and navigate the report efficiently.

5. How do you want to share your findings?

Is the Excel summary data export sufficient for data sharing?

Modern reports can be exported and downloaded as a Microsoft Excel file. The export contains summary information for each crosstab displayed in the report. It includes sentiment analysis results when applicable.

Your Excel export can be shared with your stakeholders, incorporated into other documents or reports, or further processed in third-party analysis tools, outside of the Alida platform.

Response text for Open End questions, Net Promoter Score follow-up responses, and Choice question Other/Specify answers can be viewed in the modern report, but cannot currently be exported.

The following capabilities are only available in standard reports.

  • Standard reports have additional export options that are not currently available in modern reports.

    You must use standard reports if you want to export summary data to a Microsoft PowerPoint file, export response text in comma-delimited or SPSS format, or export images uploaded by respondents.

  • The option to share a link to the report is currently limited to standard reports.