Reports vs Interfaces

Question

Hi everyone, I just want to know more about the report object in Appian. 
 I have read all the theory available in Appian, but I still have some doubts. I want to show all data on a site, so I have created one main interface that has three sub-interfaces with KPIs in it. If I want to add this to a site, I have two ways: either I can add it as an interface or as a report. Then, what is the purpose of the report? There aren't many options; we just need to select the interface we want to show in the report

Stefan Helzle · Accepted Answer

Use the interface directly. The report object is legacy.

Mike Schmitt · Answer

In older Appian versions, sites FORCED the use of a "report" to add any interface as a site page. Call it a side effect of the way the Site feature evolved over time. It quickly became apparent that the "report" object as an intermediary only served a superficial purpose (and made things needlessly complicated, as well as blocking certain funcitonality such as configuring interfaces with pre-set rule inputs based on usage on a particular site). 
 So, fortunately, several versions ago now they started allowing us to configure interfaces directly, and it is 100% an improvement. I don't know of any cases (not even anything niche) which would still benefit from use of the report object, for use on Sites.

Harsha Sharma · Answer

All Report objects are displayed on the Reports tab of Tempo. Report Object is used to create Tempo Task Reports as well. 
 If you want to show the charts in site as well as tempo then use Reports. 
 If the information in your sites page doesn't need to be accessible from the Reports tab on Tempo, use an interface for your sites page. 
 https://docs.appian.com/suite/help/25.1/sites_object.html#considerations-for-configuring-sites

Divya · Answer

The Report object in Appian is used to present an interface as a report, primarily for visibility in the Tempo > Reports tab. It helps organize and categorize reports for end-users without changing the functionality of the interface itself. It's mainly useful in scenarios where business users access reports through Tempo

Reports vs Interfaces

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