Analytics v.1.0

Version 2.2 of Symbility focused on only one new, but major feature, called Analytics. This Symbility.NET feature provides for the creation of almost limitless possibilities of management reports using your data from past claims which is archived in Symbility.NET. This is a very powerful feature, and an entire chapter of the Symbility.NET user guide will be devoted just to it, so we won't cover every single aspect of it in this write-up. This is the first release of this feature, which is scheduled to receive a facelift and general improvements sometime in 2006. If you would like additional information before the user guide is published, you can contact Symbility's free technical support, or book an hour of remote, on-line training. Another good way to learn how to use this tool is to experiment on your own using this introduction as a guide.

 

The Analytics feature works in conjunction with your Claim List (which supplies the data that is used for your reports) and the Advanced Search Panel (released with v.1.8.0.6), which can be used to isolate only specific claims in your Claim List for inclusion on your reports. Not coincidentally, the Claim List, the Advanced Search Panel and the Analytics tools are all found in the same location—on the Claims List page. This page now has two page tabs: Claim List and Report Builder (the Advanced Search Panel stays constantly visible at the top). The Analytics menu command in the menu bar at the very top of the screen is just a shortcut to the Report Builder tab.

 

To create a tabular or graphical report, you start by filtering the claim list so that it contains only the claims that you want to include in the report, using the Advanced Search Panel. We'll assume that has been done and move on to instructions for plotting the data on a graph or in a tabular report.

 

The Report Builder tab itself is divided into three tabs that define the properties of the report you will create. The first Report Builder tab is called Report Type and is fairly self-explanatory. Let's assume that a "Bar" report type, column sub-type are selected. Everything that follows applies to each report type with a few minor variations.

 

The next tab, Report Data, is where you specify which fields from your claims should be used on the report. All charts by default have "Claim count" (the total number of claims per bar) specified for the Y-axis. Start by locating the type of data you want in the Data Types box (you can either group them or list them all alphabetically). After finding the data type you want, drag-and-drop it onto one of the boxes under the "Y-axis" or "X-axis" labels. If it's a numerical data type (ex. "Estimate grand total") it can be dropped on the Y-axis—this governs the height of each bar that will appear. Any data type (ex. "Loss city", "Elapsed days from assignment sent") it can be dropped on the X-axis—this governs the number of categories, or bars there will be (one for each unique value of that data type).

 

Adjust the axis titles and chart title if necessary and Run the report. You can also adjust various options on the third tab, Report Options.

 

Each new report you create appears on its own page tab to the right of the Report Builder where it remains until it is closed, so you can return to a previously-created report later. After seeing the results of the report you created you can return to the Report Builder tab to refine the properties of the report definition (click on the Close link to remove the Report tab of the report you created if you don't need it anymore). The example below was created by choosing a bar (column) chart, landscape orientation, and selecting "Claim count" for the Y-Axis and "Assignee company name" for the X-Axis.

If the report you have generated is exactly what you want, you can print it (first Export to PDF), export it to a MS Excel file (.XLS) or save the report definition to re-run the report later on (use the Report-->Save Report As... command). When run later, the saved report will have the same properties but may contain a different set of data (the data behind the report is governed of course by how the Claim List is filtered.

 

Several other options available for each data type you include in your report, accessed by clicking the Details link beside the data type once it's been dropped onto an axis box:

• Filter: this works similar to the query fields in the Advanced Search Panel, allowing you to suppress any data for this data type that doesn't match the conditions you enter. For example, entering ">m" for the "Assignee company name" data type will show fewer bars—only those companies whose names begin with "M", "N", "O", etc.

• Buckets: This allows you to reduce the number of categories (bars) by grouping them into specified buckets. For example, entering "a<>f; g<>m" into the Buckets field would result in 3 bars, the first showing the number of claims for all assignee company names beginning with A to F, the next bar showing the number of claims for all assignee company names beginning with G to M, and the third showing the number of claims for all other assignee company names (labeled "Other"). The option "Show only specified buckets" leaves out the inclusion of the "Other" bar.

• Operation: Only available if the data type is numerical, this reduces all categories to just a single category (bar) representing the operation selected (average or sum).

• Sorting: specifies the order in which the categories appear.

Reports can get as complex as you want—we have designed the Analytics feature to allow you to create virtually any report that you can imagine (if you can dream it, you can build it).

 

By specifying multiple data types for the Y-axis, you create multiple data sets. For example, if both "Claim Count" and "Elapsed Days to Assignment Sent" are specified for the Y-axis, you will get two bars for each category (the green bars are for "Claim Count" and the blue bars are "Elapsed Days to Assignment Sent").

 

By specifying two data types for the X-axis, you group the first data type by the second. For example, specifying "Assignee company name" and "Claim status" with the following buckets for "Claim status" (in order to reduce the number of unique values to only what we're really interested in): "Claim closed; Estimate completed" results in the following chart. Each assignee contains up to three bars—one each unique claim status ("Claim closed", "Estimate completed" and "Other").

 

Similar to grouping, you can also sub-divide each category (bar) by the unique values for another data type. By moving the "Claim status" data type (keeping the same buckets) to the sub-divide box (under the axis category box), each bar for "Assignee company name" is sub-divided into x bars, where x is the number of unique values resulting from the data type in the sub-divide box (3 in our example):

 

Tabular reports are simpler since there are no axes—you simply use the data types to specify the columns that should appear on the report. Beginners should start with building tabular reports first.

 

One final thing to mention is that given the sheer power of this feature (and given that it is only at "version 1.0"—"version 2.0" will incorporate several months of user feedback) you may find Analytics to be somewhat intimidating and discouraging. Be aware that if you are having trouble building the report that you want, please allow us to do it for you. Just contact Symbility's free technical support and tell us what report you want—we will build it for you so it will be available as a saved report the next time you log in. This is a free service.