Create a Custom Report
How do I create a custom report?
Purpose: We understand that our standard reports will not cover everything you need to report. This understanding is why we have custom reporting available for you. With custom reports, you can create your own reports to gather the information that your executive team wants to see. This guide will guide you through what options are available when creating a custom report.
Do you prefer hands-on learning? Our interactive guides will guide you through different aspects of your BambooHR experience. We have an interactive guide specifically designed to show you how to create a custom report. You can use the link below to access this guide. All you need to do is modify the "REPLACEME" with your BambooHR subdomain, and you can get started!
https://REPLACEME.bamboohr.com/home?pendo=A3n-Vc4qiWS7pnZOU_rMnJ3CL5k
Heads up! BambooHR launched a newly refreshed UI, which means the product may appear differently in your account than what is shown in the video below. However, functionality will remain the same. Thank you for your patience as we continue to update our help content.
New Report
To create a new custom report, go to the Reports tab and click + New Report.
If you need to make changes to an existing custom report, click on the Custom Reports folder, choose My Reports or Company Reports, then click on a specific report.
Choose Fields
Give the report a unique name to help you find it again after saving it.
Select which information to display in the report. You can do the following:
- Search Fields: Begin typing a field name in the search box, and a list of fields will show for you to select.
- Browse Fields: Go to a corresponding tab to click on a field name and add it to Selected Fields for the report.
For optimization of your BambooHR experience, a custom report has a limit of 50 columns. If you need more fields in a report, you will need to create multiple reports and export information to combine the fields into one report. You can also try using the Calculated fields section (see below) to add information from multiple fields into one column.
Under Browse Fields, click Calculated to see a list of fields that are calculated based on combining other fields or pulling partial information from a field. The following calculated fields are available:
- ACA Status
- Address line 1 & 2
- Age
- Birthday
- City, State, Zip
- Created By User ID
- The BambooHR-assigned primary identifier of the user who added the employee to BambooHR. Most customers will not use this identifier. However, some customers who use our API may need this information.
- Dependent age
- EEID
- A BambooHR-assigned employee identifier. This is different from a user's employee number and is sometimes used for API integrations.
- Employee photo
- First name Last name
- First name Middle initial
- Is Supervisor
- A yes or no indication of whether a user has direct reports.
- Job Level
- Last changed
- The date and time of when the most recent change was made to the employee's profile.
- Last changed: ISO
- The date and time (in ISO format) of when the most recent change was made to the employee's profile.
- Length of service
- The length of an employee's service in years, months, and days. The length of service will include all instances with an active employment status.
- Length of service: Years
- The length of an employee's service in years only. This number will not round up and will always present as a whole number. The length of service will include all instances with an active employment status.
- Middle initial
- Name
- Pay Band
- Pre-Termination Employment Status
- Supervisor EID
- The BambooHR-assigned employee identifier of a user's manager (found in the Reports to column of the Job Information table). This is different from the employee # field.
- Supervisor ID
- The employee number of a user's manager (found in the Reports to column of the Job Information table).
- Supervisor name
- Termination Date
- Work phone + ext.
When selecting a table to appear in the report, you may have the option to show the table's history in the report, depending on the table type. Please note you can include the history of only one table within a custom report. This prevents delays in processing a large amount of historical data.
If you want to show the history of a different table, you will be able to edit the report. Deselect Show History for the one table, and then select Show History for a different table, and run the report again. Do you need to learn more about the difference between standard and historical tables in reporting?
- By default, custom reports display information for all employees. To report on a specific set of employees, you can add filters to your report. To start, select only employees from the menu.
- Determine if employees shown in the report should match all or any of the filter criteria. If you select any, the report will pull an employee's information if they match up with at least one part of the filter criteria. If you select all, then the report will only pull an employee's information if they match all of the filter criteria.
The next step is to add your filter criteria or conditions.
- Select the field you would like to filter by.
- Determine how you would like to filter by your selected field.*
- Add the final condition to the filter.*
In the example above, I have selected Hire Date. Since this is a date field, I have determined how to filter by the date field and how long ago we want to take the filter. In this example, I want to include all employees who have a hire date on or before the date this report is being viewed.
Other options you have for dates:
- is > today or a specific day
- is before > today or a specific day > choose to include today or the specific day
- is after > today or a specific day > choose to include today or the specific day
- is during > last, next, date range > # of days, weeks, months, or years. If you select date range, you will be able to put in the specific dates
- is blank
- is not blank
*The final two steps vary depending on what type of field you have selected.
You can add additional filters by clicking + Add Filter. To apply the filters in the way you would like, be sure to set any or all correctly.
Employees with a future hire date will automatically show in a custom report. If you do not want your future hires to display in a report, filter the report based on the hire date to exclude them from the results.
Once you run the report, you can filter the data based on the standard filters in BambooHR (Department, Division, Location, Employment Status, and Job Title). Once setting a filter, you can add an additional filter for each category if needed. You can create multiple filters for all five categories. Additionally, you can edit the report by clicking the edit icon in the top right corner, which will take you back to the creation page where you can add all other filters.
When you add names (Last name, First name) to a report, you can sort the Last name, First name field by clicking A-Z to sort the field automatically from A-Z. Data in the report will alphabetically sort employees' last names and first names.
You can add additional sorting options by clicking + Add Sort. Then, you can sort the data by any other field added to the report. In the example above, I selected the Hire Date field and sorted its data chronologically by showing the oldest first. Depending on the field in Sort by, you will have a different list of options to set the sorting.
When you add multiple sortings, the report will sort the fields in the order they are listed during setup.
Once you run a report, you can change the sorting order by clicking on a column header in the report. Double click the column header to sort data in reverse.*
*If the arrow points upward, the report is sorting data in chronological or alphabetical order by that field. If the arrow is pointing downward, the report is sorting data in reverse order.
Grouping a report allows you to group information within the report. This setting is optional. For example, if I select Employment Status, it will group all employees with the same employment status together in the report.
Notice the report automatically groups employees together if they have the same employment status.
The selected field for grouping will no longer appear as a column in the report.
It is important to note that you cannot create a custom report for data in the following areas within BambooHR:
- Applicant Tracking
- Documents and Files
- Payroll
- Performance Management
- Time Tracking