Setting and comparing time ranges for your reports

You can select the date and time range for the data displayed in your report, choosing a narrow time range for a focused view of orders over just the past 30 minutes, or a wide date range for a big picture of the orders that you've received over the whole year. Adjusting time ranges can help you analyze trends, identify patterns, and compare performance across different periods.

You can also compare a selected date range to a previous date range.

For reports that display data over time, such as the Total sales over time and New vs returning customers over time reports, you can also choose the unit of time that the data is grouped by in the report visualization (for example, by day, month, or quarter) by selecting the unit as a report dimension.

Set a date or time range for a report

When you open a report, data is displayed for a default date range. For example, the default range for some reports is the past 30 days. You can set the range to any other period, and then save the report as a custom data exploration with your preferred date range selected.

You can select a date range from a predefined list, which has popular options such as quarterly periods and Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM), or you can select a date and time range manually. The predefined list's most recent time value is Last 30 minutes, but you can manually set the time range to be as narrow as 1 minute when you want to precisely monitor in-progress events.

When selecting a date and time range manually, you can choose between a Fixed date range or a Rolling date range:

• Fixed date ranges represent a set date range that doesn't change over time, such as January 20, 2025 to January 31, 2025 or Q4 2024.
• Rolling date ranges represent a date range with days that change over time depending on the parameters of the range that you set, such as Last 7 days or Last week. When selecting a rolling date range, the date or time range is inclusive of the current period by default, meaning if you select Last 7 days, for example, then today is included as part of the "last 7 days" by default. Reports display an indication for the in-progress period in the report visualization based on the current data trend. For example, if you selected to include today as part of the "last 7 days", then the time period for today in the visualization is considered in-progress because today hasn't finished yet.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Analytics > Reports.

2. Click the name of a report that you want to adjust the date range for.

3. Do any of the following actions:

   • Click to open the date range indicator.
   • In the configuration panel's Filters menu, click the Date range value.

4. Select your custom date or time range using any of the following methods:

   • Select a predefined date or time range in the sidebar, such as Today or Yesterday.
   • Click Custom range to select a fixed date or time range. You can set the fixed range by doing any of the following actions:
     • Click the start and end date fields to manually enter start and end dates.
     • Click the dates on the calendar to select the date range visually.
     • Optional: Click to open the start and end time fields to set specific start and end times on the selected days.
   • Click the Last section to select a rolling date or time range, displayed in the calendar. You can set the rolling range by setting the range unit, such as Minutes or Days, and add the rolling value to the Last # field.
     • Optional: Deselect the Include current period setting to make the date or time range exclusive of the current time unit.

5. Click Apply.

Compare date ranges in a report

To help analyze your data, you can compare data from a selected date range to a previous date range. The comparisons are displayed in both the visualizations and data tables on your report page. The visualization displays the comparison date range as dotted or faded and the current data as solid.

Some reports include a comparison value by default, such as the Total sales over time report, which includes data from the previous 30-day period. Some reports don't include a comparison period by default, such as the Total sales breakdown. For any report, you can manually add or customize the comparison range to display the information that you want.

You can select a date range from a predefined list to compare to, which has popular options such as quarterly periods and Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM).

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Analytics > Reports.

2. Click the name of a report that you want to set a comparison date range for.

3. Click the Compare to or No comparison indicator in the upper-left corner of the report, and then click Comparison to past.

4. Select your custom comparison date or time range using any of the following methods:

   • Select a predefined date or time range in the sidebar, such as Previous period or Previous year.
   • Select a Custom range, displayed in the start and end calendars. You can set the comparison date range by doing any of the following actions:
     • Click the start and end date fields to manually select start and end dates.
     • Click the dates on the start and end calendars to select the date range visually.

5. Click Apply.

Group your report data by time unit

For reports that display data over time, such as the Total sales over time report, you can select the unit of time that the data is grouped by in both the visualization and the data table.

Steps:

1. From your Shopify admin, go to Analytics > Reports.

2. Click the name of a report that you want to set a Group by unit for.

3. In the configuration panel's Dimensions menu, do any of the following actions:

   • If there's an existing time dimension, then click that unit to change it.
   • If there's no existing time dimension, then click + to open the dimensions selector.

4. Select your preferred time unit.

Activate automatic 1-minute data refreshing on a report

To activate automatic data refreshing on a report, click the icon. This setting refreshes the data on the open report every 60 seconds.

When automatic data refreshing is active, reports display a "Last refreshed" timestamp at the top of the report beside the report name.