About Report Definitions
Report definitions are built using Report Builder. Report Builder enables you to choose a predefined report model (also called a semantic model) to use as a basis for the report, then to create a customized report definition from that model by choosing from the various options available in the report model.
Once a report definition has been created, any user who has permission to access it can open it, supply any parameters required, and view the report. If report parameters have been saved with the report definition, they will be provided when you open the report so the report can be viewed immediately using those parameters. Alternatively, the report parameters can be changed before viewing the report.
As well as using Report Builder to build report definitions, new report definitions from other sources can also be uploaded to Analytics, and existing report definitions on your system can be downloaded to your computer. For example, eGain support may supply a custom report definition to meet a specific business requirement, or you may want to copy an existing report definition from one system to another.
Report definitions are often referred to loosely as reports, but they are actually two different things. A report definition is an Analytics entity shown in the folder tree that provides a template you can use to generate a specific instance of a report, whereas a report is what you generate when you open a report definition, supply some parameters and view the results. Occasionally the distinction needs to be made clear in a particular context. For example, you can upload or download a report definition (a template for many similar reports), and you can save reports (a specific set of data generated from the template), but these are different actions on different entities with different results.
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