Guide the assistant with report instructions
Set lasting terminology, units, date conventions, and design references for future report work.
Report instructions give conversations a shared set of analytical and presentation conventions. Use them for terminology, preferred date handling, units, and other rules that should apply to future work in this report.
Instructions are report-wide. They are separate from the connection's reusable model definitions and from an individual chat message.
Add report instructions
- Open the report with editing access.
- Click Instructions in the toolbar.
- In AI Instructions, enter the text in Instructions for AI.
- Keep it within the 1,500-character limit and save.
- Start or continue a conversation with the task you want performed.
Saving instructions guides subsequent requests. It does not automatically rerun old answers, rewrite existing queries, or restyle the report.
Write useful instructions
Use concrete definitions and conventions. Name the source of a rule when the details live elsewhere.
Use the model's net_revenue measure for revenue.
Present money in USD and show the unit in labels.
Use calendar months and UTC dates unless I specify another convention.
Exclude incomplete months from period-over-period comparisons.
State the date coverage and effective filters when summarizing results.
Use the report's brand guide for new HTML pages.
Keep source values intact; apply number formatting only for display.
This is an example. It assumes those definitions and reference files exist and that the conventions are appropriate for your report.
Avoid competing instructions such as both “always use calendar months” and “all summaries must use fiscal periods.” Specify which rule takes precedence.
Choose where to put information
| Information | Best place |
|---|---|
| An executable measure used across reports | Semantic model |
| Report-specific terminology, units, or time conventions | Report instructions |
| A long style guide, data dictionary, or reference report | Report files |
| The pages and objects to change now | The current chat message |
| A temporary exploratory filter | Runtime interaction |
| A saved filter intended to affect future queries | Visual, page, report, or HTML registration filter controls |
Instructions can refer to a long document rather than squeezing the entire document into 1,500 characters. The assistant can retrieve the relevant sections from the report library.
Use instructions with HTML pages
Instructions can establish an audience, formatting conventions, or a reference template. The request should still describe the page you want built.
Build an HTML monthly review using the report instructions and the
existing reference template. Use registered live visuals for each KPI,
chart, and detail table. Preview the result and correct layout issues.
A file's sample numbers are not live data. Specify that the assistant should preserve the design while replacing sample values with model-backed calculations.
Change a convention
- Update and save the report instructions.
- Identify the existing pages or visuals that should adopt the new convention.
- Ask the assistant to inspect those objects and apply the necessary changes.
- Review the saved operations and resulting page.
Changing a timezone convention, for example, may require SQL changes as well as label changes. Changing a font usually requires presentation edits only.
Understand the boundary
Instructions guide AI behavior; they are not an authorization policy, a database constraint, or an automatic metric validator. They cannot grant access to a source or override report roles.
When a rule must be part of every calculation, express it in a validated model definition or appropriate saved query/filter. Use AI context to understand how these sources of context work together.
Questions about your environment? Contact us.