Custom Report Builder

B2B SaaS, HR Tech, 0 → 1 Product, Product Design, Reporting & Analytics

Making report creation a self-service experience

Customers needed reports tailored to their business, but Keka HR only offered predefined reports. Getting a custom report meant raising a support ticket and waiting for developers to build it—a process that could take more than two weeks.

We introduced Custom Report Builder to give users the freedom to choose their data, customize reports, and access the insights they need without depending on other teams.

My role

Product Designer

Team

2 Product Designer
1 Product Manager
4 Engineers

Timeline

About 2 months

The Challenge

Reporting should work around the user, not the other way around.

Every business has different reporting needs. But Keka HR offered predefined reports, leaving customers with limited flexibility to get the exact information they needed.

When standard reports fell short, customers had to depend on internal teams to get the right data. This made reporting less flexible and prevented users from accessing insights on their own terms.

How & what I found

It started with a ticket.

While working at Keka HR, I often got tagged in support tickets to understand customers' custom reporting needs. I'd discuss the requirements with the PM, create a task, and hand it over to developers.

These requests kept interrupting our planned work and sometimes delayed other deliverables. We decided to look deeper into how often this happened and its impact on the team.

Every custom report came with a chain of handoffs.

Looking into the requests, we found that multiple custom report tickets were raised every month. Each request involved support gathering requirements, followed by product and development teams reviewing and building the report.

The process took an average of two weeks per request, adding coordination work across teams and disrupting planned development work.

The existing custom report process

Customer raises a support ticket

Requests a report with specific data or KPIs.

Support gathers requirements

Connects with the customer to understand what they need.

Product and development handle the request

Review requirements, plan the work, and build the custom report.

Support delivers
the report

Shares the completed report with the customer.

2+ weeks

Average time taken to fulfil a custom report request

The problem was bigger than reporting.

The investigation revealed that customers were dependent on internal teams for something they should have been able to do themselves.

Every custom report request added coordination work, interrupted planned development tasks, and made customers wait for the information they needed.

We saw an opportunity to break this cycle by giving users the ability to build their own reports, while allowing product and development teams to focus on improving the platform.

What I designed and why

Giving users control over their reports

Customers needed more than predefined reports. They needed the flexibility to choose their data, track relevant KPIs, and create reports that matched their business needs.

Self-service reporting

Users should be able to create reports independently, without raising support tickets.

Relevant Data

Users needed the freedom to choose the data that mattered to their reporting needs.

Flexible columns

Users should be able to select and organize columns based on the information they need.

Powerful filters

Users needed to narrow down data and find the information relevant to them.

Easy to understand

Report creation should feel intuitive, without a steep learning curve.

Less waiting

Users should be able to get the reports they need without waiting for internal teams.

Built for everyday users

The experience needed to work for users with different levels of technical and reporting knowledge.

Automated report delivery

Users should be able to schedule reports and have them automatically delivered .

A guided way to build custom reports

To make report creation easier and avoid overwhelming users with too many options at once, I structured the experience into four clear steps.

Select a data set

Start by choosing the data source for the report based on the information the user wants to access.

Customize columns

Choose the relevant fields and arrange the columns to include the information that matters.

Group and filter

Organize data into meaningful groups and apply filters to narrow down the results.

Save the report

Save the configured report so users can access and use it again when needed.

Final output

The impact

From waiting on reports to creating them independently

Greater customer independence

Users can create and customize reports without relying on support or developers.

Less operational overhead

Fewer manual handoffs between support, product, and development teams.

More focused development

Less interruption from individual report requests, leaving more room for planned product work.