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Custom Reports in Clio Manage

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Reports in Clio Manage are designed to help your law firm track deliverables and get insights into all aspects of how the firm is performing. Classic reports in Clio Manage provide ready-to-use reports for common use cases along with the ability to customize the reports to highlight specific insights from the data. Refer to Clio Manage Reports, Presets, and History to learn more about these reports.

For nuanced reporting needs, Clio Manage also offers the ability to create custom reports. With custom reports you have access to more data in Clio Manage and additional control of filter functionality.

Note: The Custom reports feature is currently in and is being gradually released over the coming weeks. If you do not see it in your account yet, it will become available to you soon.

 

Generate custom reports in Clio Manage

Step 1: Create a new custom report

  1. In Clio Manage, go to the main Reports tab, then select the Reports tab.
  2. Click Create new custom report.
    Note: If you want to create a new report that is similar to an existing report, you can also duplicate an existing report by clicking the More icon (three horizontal dots) on any of the existing cards, then clicking Duplicate and customize.
  3. Add the report Name, Description, and Category.
  4. Select your dataset. For information on the available datasets and their descriptions, refer to Understand available datasets.
  5. Add the fields and calculations to include in your report.
    • As you select fields and calculations, a preview of your report will be displayed (with sample data).
    Tip: The fields and calculations you select will be the descriptive column headers (or column name) in the data sheet. Click the question mark next to any field or calculation for a basic description of the data.
  6. Once you have selected all fields and calculations to include in the report, click Create report.

To find the created report at a later time, find it in your Custom tab.

Tip: Common, ready-to-use reports are also available. Find them in the Clio tab in the Reports section.

Step 2: Refine the custom report

Once you create a report, you can refine it by rearranging the columns, filtering the data, and grouping data.

  • Click Columns to open the columns pane. Drag and drop the columns to rearrange them on the report. Use the eye icon for a column name to show or hide the column from view. Your report will update as you make changes to the columns.
  • Click Filters to open the filters pane. When you first open this pane, a default date filter with values for the previous month will be applied. Click Add filter to remove this pre-set date filter and choose your own date range. Choose the field to filter on, then choose the condition. Your report will update as you add and remove filters or change filter conditions. You can add as many filters as you like.
  • Click Groups to open the groups pane. You can currently choose up to two levels to group by. Click Apply to change the order of the row grouping in your report, or Apply and close to do the same and close the groups pane. Your report now also includes additional rows that provide summary information for your groupings.

If you anticipate needing this report again in the future, along with the filters and groupings applied, you can save it as a Report view.

  1. Click Save report view.
  2. Add a short and descriptive name.
  3. Click Save report view.

This will save the report that you generated in step 1 including the refinements you made in step 2 for later use. The breadcrumb indicates the sequential nature of how this particular report view is saved. The Custom Report represents the report you generated in step 1 while the Report View includes the refinements you made in step 2 (rearranging, filtering, and grouping). You can find both your Reports and your Report views in their respective sections in the Reports  tab.

View, edit, export, or delete custom reports and report views

If you are a Primary subscriber, Administrator, or have Report role permissions, you can view the custom reports and report views you created, as well as those created by any other user in Clio Manage.

Tip: Search by name or use the filter to quickly find a specific custom report.
Card view Table view
  • Click Preview on the report to view a summary of the report.
  • Click on the name of the report to view more details. Each of the report’s subtabs provide information about the report.
    • Report: View information about the report itself, including a summary of key metrics gleaned from the report, the columns of the report and how they are arranged, filters applied, and groupings applied.
    • Report views: See a list of all unique views created from the original report.
    • History: This tab shows a list of previous report exports along with the user who exported the report, the time of export, and the export format. You can also download the specific copy of that export.
  • Click on the more icon (the three horizontal dots) to do any of the following: Edit report, Export report, Duplicate and customize the report, or Delete report.

You can access report views from the following locations.

From the main reports page From a specific report
  1. In Clio Manage, click the main Reports tab, then select the Reports  tab.
  2. Scroll down to the Report views section.
    Tip: Search by name or use the filter to quickly find a specific report view.
  3. Find, then click the name of the report view to open and view details about it. Each of the report view’s subtabs provide information about the report.
    • Report views: View information about the report view itself, including a summary of key metrics gleaned from the report view, the columns of the report and how they are arranged, filters applied, and groupings applied
    • History: This tab shows a list of previous report view exports along with the user who exported the report, the time of export, and the export format. You can also download the specific copy of that export.

 

Schedule report views

To help you to keep up to date with your firm’s metrics and make insightful business decisions, you can schedule generating report views.

  1. In Clio Manage, go to the main Reports tab. Ensure the Reports  tab is selected.
  2. Scroll down to the Report views table and click Add schedule for the relevant report view. You can also click Schedule when viewing a report view.
    • If you previously scheduled this report, click on Daily/Weekly/Monthly to open the modal to edit the schedule
  3. Add the required details including how often to generate the report, the time at which to generate the report, the start date, who to notify, and the report format.
  4. Click Save schedule.

To delete a schedule, click the Daily, Weekly, or Monthly link for the report view, then Remove schedule.

 

Understand available datasets

To streamline the process of creating custom reports, Clio Manage organizes available data into logical datasets that contain related data. This makes it easier to find the specific data fields you need to answer questions related to particular topics.

When you generate a report, you will be able to choose a particular dataset and you can view the various fields and calculations available along with their descriptions to help you choose the most appropriate data to include in your report.

Bills dataset

The Bills dataset gives you access to Clio Manage data related to bills, payments, and balances, along with information related to matters, contacts, and bill dates, allowing you to answer questions at the meeting point of the data. The following example scenario can help you understand how to gain insight into your firm’s billing.

Bills report example

Imagine you need insight into the amounts you billed over the course of the last three years, along with information about how much you collected on these bills vs how much remains unpaid. You also want to know how these amounts were different for matters with different practice areas. Since the bills dataset comprises the information you require, you can generate a report to provide you with these insights.

When you generate a report, you can select the Practice area and Bill due year fields and the Payment total and Bill balance total calculations.

Then, use the filters and columns to to refine the report (step 2) for your specific question. In the current example, you might do the following:

  • Click Filters and adjust the time period to include data from the last three years.
    • Add a filter where you set the Bill due at date value to a period spanning the last three years.
  • Use the grouping function to group by Bill due year, then by Practice area.
Tip: Reverse these fields if you are interested in understanding how billings are affected by practice areas and subsequently you want to see how that changes over the three-year period.
For this particular example, you can also arrange the columns to provide the same information you obtain using the grouping function. You can arrange the columns so that the table is organized first by Bill due at year (as the first column), then Practice area (as the second column) to organize billings and payments in the table list.

 

Time Entry Productivity dataset

The Time Entry Productivity dataset gives you access to Clio Manage data related to non-billable, billable, billed, unbilled, and tracked hours, along with information related to activity dates, matters, contacts, and firm users to answer questions at the meeting point of the data. The following example scenario can help you understand how to gain insight into your firm’s productivity and some of the factors that may affect productivity.

Time Entry Productivity report example
  1. You want to determine how productive different members are at your firm in order to offer development opportunities where it may be needed.
  2. You want to determine which matter types or practice areas are more lucrative for your firm.

Since the Time Entry Productivity dataset comprises the information you require, you can generate a report to provide you with these insights.

When you generate a report, you can select the Matter description, Practice area, and User full name fields and the Billed hours value, Unbilled hours value, and Utilization rate calculations. . Then, use the filters and columns to refine the report for your specific question. In the current example, you might do the following:

  • Click Filters and adjust the time period to include data from the previous quarter to get a representative time range to answer your questions.
    • Click Filter, then select the activity date for Last quarter.
  • To answer the first question, use the grouping function to group by User full name to view the Billed hours value, Unbilled hours value, and Utilization rate per firm user. You can save this report view if you are interested in referring to it again.
  • To answer the second question, change the grouping to group by Matter description or Practice area, whichever option you find the most relevant. The Practice area field has a limited number of categories, making grouping easy, but if your firm uses consistent Matter descriptions, this field may also be useful in this example. Once again, you can save this report view if you are interested in referring to it again.

 

Payments & Credit Notes dataset

The Payment & Credit Notes dataset gives you access to Clio Manage data related to collected and credited monetary values and hours, etc., along with information related to matters, contacts, payment and bill dates, and firm users allowing you to answer questions at the meeting point of the data.

You can refer to the previous examples for the Bills and Time Entry Productivity datasets to understand how to leverage any dataset to create relevant reports in order to make data-driven decisions for your firm.

 

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