Note: D2L is transitioning analytics functionality from Insights Report Builder to Analytics Builder. Both tools will be available during the transition period. You can continue to use Insights Report Builder to view existing reports. Those reports will be refreshed with new data. Existing assets will be transitioned to Analytics Builder in the next few months.
Both Analytics Builder and Insights Report Builder allow users to dig deeper into data and visualizations using skills and knowledge about the Brightspace Datasets (BDS) they already have, but without the complexity of having to work directly with a data warehouse. Users can launch both Analytics Builder and Insights Report Builder directly from the Insights Portal to access report authoring or viewing based on their permissions.
Figure: Analytics Builder and Insights Report Builder appear on the Insights Portal. When Insights Report Builder reaches the end-of-life milestone at the end of 2024, it will be removed.
Analytics Builder gives you the following capabilities:
- Start with a template visualization and customize it to be your own
- Create, edit, and share your reports, dashboards, and visualizations with other users
- Access fresh Brightspace Datasets (BDS) data that is ready for visualization
- Schedule reports
- Power to leverage row- and column-level permissions
The datasets in Analytics Builder and Insights Report Builder contain the same data that is available in Brightspace Datasets from Data Hub. For addition information on datasets, refer to About Data Hub.
Brightspace Datasets run on a schedule that is either weekly fulls and daily diffs, or (for an additional cost) daily fulls and hourly diffs. Analytics Builder checks every four hours to see if new data has been generated and loads any new data. The datasets follow the same d2l.Tools.BrightspaceDataSets.Version configuration variable setting. The version used is appended to the name of each dataset.
The core tasks you can perform using Analytics Builder are as follows:
- Create custom datasets
- Create a visualization
- Add a filter
- Join data assets together
- Share a visualization
- Schedule reports to be refreshed and emailed to a group of stakeholders
About Analytics Builder
Analytics Builder uses an updated visualization interface. The update provides a streamlined report creation workflow, enhances reporting capabilities, provides global infrastructure support, and provides better accessibility features than were available in Insights Report Builder.
About Insights Report Builder
Users can also launch Insights Report Builder directly from the Insights Portal to view previously created reports based on their permissions. Insights Report Builder leverages data from Brightspace and a third-party visualization engine. Saved reports are automatically updated with refreshed DataFlows.
Additional information
Analytics Builder – Visualization Infrastructure transition