Report AI is a built-in feature that helps you quickly analyze payroll data, no spreadsheets or pivot tables needed. Just type a question, and it turns your data into charts or tables instantly.

You can ask things like:

"How much was paid to part-time employees last month?"
“Can you show the total overtime hours by department?”
“Who received bonuses this pay period?”

Don’t know where to start? Report AI suggests questions based on the report you’re viewing.

In this article, we’ll show you how to use Report AI effectively.

Report AI Assistant

Ask questions that get results

To get the best results, here’s what you need to know about Report AI:

It creates one chart or table at a time. If you want to see different views, just ask a new question.
It can’t change or update existing charts. You’ll need to make a new one for each different data sets you want to see.
It only works with the data in the payroll report you’re looking at. If the data isn’t there, it can’t answer about it.
It can’t interpret your company’s specific rules or government policies. To get the best results, ask clear, data-based questions.

💡 Instead of asking, “Who’s eligible for health insurance?” try asking, “Which employees worked 30 or more hours per week in the last 12 months?”

How Report AI understands your questions

Report AI carefully matches the words in your question to the data fields in your report. For example, if you say “location” but your report calls it “Primary Workplace Name,” it will ask for clarification to make sure you get the right answer. The closer your question matches the field names, the better the results.

If you’re unsure about the exact field names, that's okay. Just describe the data you're looking for. Report AI will ask follow-up questions if it needs more details.

Generate a payroll report using Report AI

Here's how to get started:

Open a built-in payroll report
1. In Team View, go to Reporting.
2. Select Reports, then go to the Payroll tab.
3. Select the payroll report type you want to generate (e.g., Payroll Summary Report).
Launch Report AI
1. In the upper-right corner, select Report AI. This opens the Report AI Assistant window.
2. Enter your question. You can either:
  - Type your own question in the free-text box (e.g., “Show net pay by employee type”), then hit Enter.
    Keep your questions focused on what’s already in your payroll report. If your question is a bit vague, Report AI will ask follow-up questions to clarify what you mean.
  - Choose from one of the suggested report prompts under Chart suggestions.
Create and customize your report
1. Select Create chart to generate the visualization.
2. Review the generated report, and change how it looks under the Visualization Type section.
  You can choose from table, line, bar, pie, KPI, area, heat map, or scatter views.
3. Want to focus on a specific set of data? Just type what you're looking for in the chat. Report AI will apply filters based on your request.
  You can see these filters listed under the Filters section.
Save your report
1. To add this report as a new tab under this particular payroll report type, select Create view. The tab is automatically named based on the data or insight being shown, but you can rename it anytime.
2. If you want to make a separate copy of the report, select Save As.

Start over with a new question

If you want to ask a new question and generate a new report, you can reset the chat. This clears out the previous conversation and starts fresh.

Look at the top of the Report AI chat panel (right side of your screen).
Select the Reset icon.
Ask a new question, or select a new suggestion.

Switch views if your chart doesn't load

Sometimes when you ask Report AI to show your data as a chart (like a bar, line, or pie chart), you might get error messages like:

Line Chart — Missing Y-axis values and X-axis grouping
Bar Chart — Missing Y-axis values and X-axis grouping
Pie Chart — Missing values and “Group by”
KPI — Missing values
Scatter Plot — Missing X-axis and Y-axis

These messages mean Report AI doesn’t have the right kind of data it needs to build the chart.

📌 Charts always need two things:

A number to add or count (Y-axis), like total hours worked or total pay
A way to group or sort that number (X-axis), like by department, month, or employee name

If your question only asks for basic info (like names and hours) without grouping or comparisons, Report AI will just show a table because there's nothing to graph.

Example on how to switch views

You ask Report AI to "Show a table of employees who worked 30+ hours/week or 130+ hours/month, including their names and total hours worked."

Report AI returns a table with employee names and hours worked based on your eligibility criteria (30+ hours/week or 130+ hours/month). This is exactly what you want to see as a list, but it’s not enough info for a chart because there’s no grouping or comparison.

To get a chart instead of a table, try adding a way to group the data in your question. For example, you can add a follow-up message, "Which locations have the most employees working 30+ hours?". Now, Report AI can build a bar chart comparing the data. From here, you can:

Switch to other chart types (if the data supports it)
Go back to a table view to see the raw data