Bad visualization for reports with date ranges in the future

[karenkaz]

I've created a series of dashboards for a stakeholder with reports that track the size of active lists. (In this case, the list count going down in size is a good thing as it tracks the number of unpaid members/subscriptions who are due for renewal.) 

I am setting up the dashboards to be emailed to the stakeholder weekly, automatically, which is great.

What is not great is that either I have to go in and change the end date of the list size reports manually every week, OR I can set the end date in the future but the line for list size gets extrapolated out to the future from the value of the latest date. (see screenshot).

This is bad data visualization and report design, as it gives the impression there is data that does not yet exist, and makes it harder for non-expert stakeholders to at a glance see and interpret the true data. 

If I make a report in Looker or other report building tool and there isn't a value for a date, I can choose if I want the line to go to zero or to break (i.e., just end/disappear). This should be an option in HubSpot too. (Extrapolating the line to the end of the date range is a weird, bad third option that I don't understand, but I could live with it existing as long as other, better options exist.) 

Has anyone figured out another better way to deal with this? The value in being able to schedule reports is greatly diminished if I have to go in manually and update the report date range. 

[karenkaz]

Hi! I just want to share that I found a solution - the "After" setting in the date range works fine and does not extrapolate out. I did not realize this option existed (maybe it's new, maybe I just missed it, maybe I'm misremembering from list filters and not reports.) Thanks for the help and encouragement to look further!

I'd love to add markers/targets but unfortunately I saved this report from the list performance so it's not as customizable. I'll look into recreating it in custom report builder to see if that gives me more options.

Thanks!

[ScottPennwood · Accepted solution]

Hey @karenkaz 

Would switching to "This xxxx So Far" help? (Quarter/Year)

It wouldn't attempt to pull in non-existent data. 

Or assuming that having that future date in there is a deal-breaker due to reporting requirements/visualising a target, you could potentially add the holy trinity of "Trend Line", "Today's Date Marker" and "Target" to help visualise to non-expert stakeholders where you're at compared to where you want to be (and actually, by proxy, that flat line would suddenly become a "This is what will happen if nothing improves" line, instead of looking like a data error. 

[PamCotton]

Hey @karenkaz, happy Friday!

Thank you for sharing this, the issue with future date ranges in HubSpot reports seems to be causing confusion because the line extrapolates out from the latest data point. I would highly recommend you to please post this idea at our ideas forum (here).

Our product team, who monitors the forum regularly, can read your specific use case and understand why this would be a useful functionality or change. It also helps other customers facing the same issue to advocate for its implementation on your behalf by upvoting on the thread as well.

Kindly,

Pam