Halo includes Flexible Data Source Management in Your Reports

Data connection is the starting point for any queries in Halo Reports. In the Connect section, you can see all the surveys you have access to, potentially organized into separate datasets based on their dataset attributes (e.g., country or year). One data connection can only use one survey, but within this survey, any number of datasets can be included. This selection defines the scope of data used for calculation in queries that rely on this connection.. For example, if you set your data connection to use the Germany 2021 dataset only, the results will be generated using only the Germany 2021 data. If you pick 2017-21 data from Germany, the 5-year scope will be used as the basis for any calculations. It is essential to understand that any results will be calculated based on the sum of all selected datasets, unless the query definition includes a question that will split or further filter out the results based on related variables (for example - a Year variable can be used in Rows or Columns to show each Year separately next to Sample Total which shows results based on all datasets combined).

Many organizations have access to multiple data sources, and a comprehensive report is often required to use input from all of them. The “Connect” section in Halo Reports Authoring mode enables you to define multiple connections, each potentially using a different data source, which can later determine the context of data in your Report.

If you are creating tabular reports in the Query section, each tab can be linked to a different connection.

In Compose, you can use any data available in the Query module to design visual report pages. This means that you can combine charts, tables, or other visual components on one page, even if they use data coming from separate connections. Such flexibility is very useful if you need to prepare a comprehensive one-pager summarizing the most important information from multiple sources, or if you need to enrich your analysis with insights from a complementary data source.

Even if you are using just a single study as a data source for your report, it may be separated into multiple datasets (e.g., by country or by period). Sometimes, all you need is to define one connection, as you need the same subset of data for each of your report pages, for example, years 2020-2024 for a given country. There may be, however, situations where some of your analyses focus on one year, while others require a longer timeline, or when you need a different regional scope in certain situations. In that scenario, you can also take advantage of the possibility to define multiple data connections. You can have one connection for the years 2020-2024, while the other will only include 2024. This will allow you to simplify your queries, as you will not need to filter out data you don’t need, focusing instead only on the relevant datasets. In addition, any changes in the future will be simpler, as you can control the scope of datasets in one place in the Connect section.

Don’t want to manually update your reports to include the new wave of data? Dynamic connections in Halo Reports offer just what you need! Instead of defining the scope of datasets manually, you can switch to dynamic selection rules.

One of the options here is to dynamically select X first (or last) datasets based on the specific dataset attribute. A perfect example would be automating a selection of the most recent data. Knowing that your period attribute (e.g., Year) provides an ordered option, you choose to pick 1 (or multiple) most recent years.

You can manually select values of other attributes, in order to, e.g., limit the most recent selection to a specific country.

With your connection set up in this way, once the new data for Germany becomes available, the list of datasets used in this report will automatically adjust to include it. If your report structure is consistent across periods, you may have ready-to-use insights without any additional adjustments!

What about the scenario where you would like to have an identical report set up across different dataset selections? If your dataset attributes include the dimensions you want to use to fan out the report, you can parameterize your dynamic connection to be able to have all the insights accessible within one document! Let’s take an example of a report, which should work for any country, and focus on the two most recent waves of data for each country. We already know how to choose the two most recent data waves.

For the country attribute, instead of manually selecting one or more countries, we can bind the selection to a parameter - the easiest way to do it is to create a new parameter on the fly from the Country selector.

With such a connection in place, when you switch to your tables and pages, each of them will expose for you a parameter that you can use to switch the country used in the whole report.

This way, you get easy access to data for all the countries with just one click, without having to multiply reports or queries within one report!

In case you are building a report for which you would like to include visual pages for multiple countries, the dynamic connection may still come in handy. If each of your report sections contains the same set of pages, you can start by defining a section for one country, based on the predefined set of queries. Once done, you can switch the parameter to act locally, rather than impacting the whole report.

Now you can duplicate the report section, and after selecting all the pages from the section, change the country on all of them in one go. In this way, you can have a comprehensive visual report based on a common set of queries, which simplifies future query adjustments.