Rmarkdown template for smart reporting

This repository permits to create a RMarkdown based smart report intended as an easy-to-use, web-based report. A smart report can be both static or interactive. Basic smart reporting relies upon static data automatically retrieved following a predefined schedule. More advanced smart reporting leave the user the freedom to retrieve specific data and select visualization that best suits its needs, enriching the tool flexibility to produce more desirable and custom outputs. For example, the user can select specific time frames, add comments, chose visualizations and set custom KPIs.

The repository is structured as follows:

├── LICENSE
├── R
│   └── utils_plot.R
├── README.md
├── css
│   └── clear.css
├── data
│   └── power_small.csv
├── html
│   ├── footer.html
│   └── template.html
├── img
│   ├── baeda-abb.jpg
│   ├── baeda.jpg
│   └── hero.png
├── knit_browser.R
├── main.Rmd
├── main.html
└── smartreport-template.Rproj

How to use this template

This template repository was conceived as a basic template to structure more complicatd data analytics reports. Just click on the github button Use as template to clone the repository to your own Github Account and start wirking on it.

🔨 Set up the css global variables

The default css file is called clear.css and is located in css folder. The standard css file was built with the idea of only modifying some global variables in order to give a personal touch to the report without heavily modifying the css. The global variables are defined at the beginning of the css file:

:root {
    --red: #ff000f;
    --section-background: #F4FAFFFF;
    --tobe-blue: #04005E;
    --tobe-pink: #ff2079;
    --baeda-blue: #2E4F97;
    --baeda-orange: #F47806;
    --baeda-light-blue: #D9EBF6;
    --toc-image: url("../img/baeda-abb.jpg");
}

The first variables are related to the colours of the css while --toc-image to the image that is displayed upon the table of content. We suggest to use a rectangular image/logo in order to fit in a proportioned way.

📊 Set up the analysis

The main.Rmd is the RMarkdown file in which the analysis are contained. The yaml of the RMarkdown file contains all the useful options for the report generation.

title: "Report Template"
author: "Author"
date : "`r Sys.Date()`"
output:
  html_document:
    # template: "template-basic/template.html"
    css: "css/clear.css"
    toc: true
    toc_float: true
    number_sections: true
    self_contained: true
    includes:
      after_body: 'html/footer.html'

By default the RMarkdown retreives the default css file and html footer and generates an html_document. The document accepts even a custom html template, but we suggest not to use it to avoud compilation issues. For futher details related to the parameters visit the official Rmarkdown website and related material.

To setup the analisys we suggest to organize the R script (if any) in the R folder and dataframes in the data folder. By default the highcharter pachage is loaded in order to provide interactive graphical output.

🎬 Compile

The report can be compiled in two ways

1. From the main.Rmd: This first option is the most straightforward since the RStudio IDE just press the knit button.
2. From the knit_browser.R file: this option is more complicated since it compiles the document though rmarkdown::render() function that permits to set more options, for example the destination folder of the generated report or the visualization in the default browser window.