Reporting agents: turning dashboards into decisions

Dashboards expose data; decisions need context

Dashboards are good at making measures available. They do not guarantee that someone checks the right view, recognises a material change, finds the related context and communicates it in time. That repeated interpretation is the reporting agent’s job.

The agent should sit on top of existing analytics rather than replace the warehouse or BI layer. Metrics, definitions and access remain authoritative in the current stack.

Define the reporting contract

Specify the audience, cadence, measures, comparison periods, thresholds and expected format. Agree which statements require a citation and which changes are worth mentioning. Without this contract, summaries become generic narration.

Separate facts from interpretation and recommendation. A brief can state what changed, offer supported context and flag questions without pretending to know a cause the data cannot establish.

• →Named audience and decision
• →Approved metric definitions
• →Materiality thresholds
• →Source link for each claim
• →Escalation for missing or conflicting data

Build a traceable workflow

On schedule, the agent retrieves approved measures, validates freshness, calculates deterministic comparisons, investigates configured dimensions and drafts the briefing. Every observation links back to its source.

If a source is stale or incomplete, the output should say so or stop. Silent substitution undermines trust. Use code for calculations and the model for selecting and explaining relevant patterns.

Keep analysts in the valuable part

Analysts should review unusual or consequential interpretations, improve the reporting rules and investigate causes. They should not spend the first hour of each morning copying numbers into a template.

Capture edits and rejected observations. These reveal where thresholds, context or wording need adjustment. Over time, routine categories may require less review while novel changes remain visible.

Measure whether the brief changes work

Track delivery time, readership, accepted observations, analyst edits and follow-up actions. A beautifully written report that nobody uses is not a successful agent.

Start with one recurring report and a known audience. Once definitions, citations and feedback work, extend the pattern to another business unit or cadence rather than broadening everything at once.