KPI Pulse (Adobe Analytics)
Produce a compact, digestible KPI digest showing how key metrics changed over
a chosen period, which items drove the change, and what stood out. Batches all
KPIs into two
calls (current period + comparison period) and
assembles results into an HTML performance card deck.
AA MCP Tools Used
- — select working report suite
- — set session context (reportSuiteId + globalCompanyId)
describeAa(REPORT_SUITE_CONTEXT_GUIDE)
— load org context, top metrics,
calendar config, and timezone
- — discover and validate metric IDs
- — identify top-used metrics if user hasn't specified
- — all KPIs batched in one call per period (current + comparison)
- — find top contributors for top-mover callouts
Phase 0 — Setup
- Confirm report suite with / .
- Call
describeAa(REPORT_SUITE_CONTEXT_GUIDE)
to load organizational
context: top metrics, calendar configuration, and timezone. Record the
report suite's first-day-of-week as and the report suite
timezone as — you will use both when computing reporting
periods in Phase 2. If the context guide returns no ,
default to Monday (ISO 8601).
findReportSuites(globalCompanyId: "<gcid>")
setSessionDefaults(globalCompanyId: "<gcid>", reportSuiteId: "<rsid>")
describeAa(guideType: "REPORT_SUITE_CONTEXT_GUIDE")
Phase 1 — Select KPIs
1.1 If the user specified metrics
Resolve each to an AA metric ID:
findMetrics(searchTerm: "<metric name>")
Cap at 8 metrics for a focused pulse. If more are requested, ask the user
to prioritize or offer to split into multiple reports.
1.2 If the user has not specified metrics
Use
to find the most-used metrics in the report suite:
listComponentUsage(componentType: "metric")
Select the top 5–7 by usage count. Confirm with the user:
"Based on usage, I'll track: Visits, Page Views, Revenue, Orders,
Conversion Rate, Bounce Rate. Does this look right, or would you like
to adjust?"
Phase 2 — Select Time Periods
Ask the user what period to report on, or infer from context:
| Request | Current Period | Comparison Period |
|---|
| "this week" | Last 7 days | Prior 7 days |
| "this month" | Month-to-date | Same period last month |
| "last month" | Last full calendar month | Same month prior year |
| "this quarter" | Quarter-to-date | Same period last quarter |
| "YTD" | Jan 1 to today | Same period prior year |
Confirm: "I'll compare [current period] vs [comparison period]. Is that right?"
Calendar rule (mandatory): the current period and the comparison period
MUST use the same
from Phase 0. For weekly pulses, both
periods'
fall on the same day-of-week, both are exactly 7 days
long, and the comparison period ends immediately before the current period
starts. Never mix conventions (e.g., a Mon–Sun current with a Sun–Sat prior)
within the same pulse. For custom date ranges, compute the comparison
period as the equal-length window ending immediately before the current
period starts.
Sanity check before calling : confirm
and
are the same day-of-week and that
current.startDate - comparison.endDate == 1 day
. If not, recompute.
Edge case: If today is within the first 3 days of a period, note that
the current-period data may be incomplete and the comparison may look skewed.
Phase 3 — Fetch KPI Data
Batch all selected metrics into a single call per period:
runReport(
metricIds: "<metricId1>,<metricId2>,<metricId3>,...",
dimensionId: "variables/daterangeday",
startDate: "<current period start>T00:00",
endDate: "<current period end>T23:59"
)
runReport(
metricIds: "<metricId1>,<metricId2>,<metricId3>,...",
dimensionId: "variables/daterangeday",
startDate: "<comparison period start>T00:00",
endDate: "<comparison period end>T23:59"
)
Note: accepts comma-separated IDs — pass all KPIs at once.
/
(not
); no
parameter.
Use
for day-by-day breakdown.
,
, etc. correspond to each metric in order.
Unauthorized metrics surface in
; the rest of the call still succeeds.
2 calls total regardless of metric count.
From each pair, compute:
- Current value (total over period)
- Prior value (total over comparison period)
- Absolute delta: current - prior
- Percent change: (delta / prior) × 100
- Trend: ↑ if positive, ↓ if negative, → if within ±2%
Phase 4 — Top Mover Context
For the 1–2 metrics with the largest percent changes (positive or negative),
run a dimension breakdown to find the top contributor:
runReport(
metricIds: "<metricId>",
dimensionId: "variables/marketingchannel",
startDate: "<current period start>T00:00",
endDate: "<current period end>T23:59",
limit: 5
)
Repeat for a second dimension if relevant (e.g., pages for a traffic spike,
products for a revenue change).
Use results to write a 1–2 sentence driver narrative:
"Visits rose 18% WoW, driven primarily by Organic Search (+34%) which
offset a decline in Direct traffic (-12%)."
Phase 5 — Generate HTML Report
Build the KPI pulse HTML report inline and write to
/tmp/aa_kpi_pulse_report_<YYYY-MM-DD_HHMMSS>.html
.
Rendering rules — apply consistently across runs
Two runs of this skill on the same report suite + period must render identically
(modulo the generation timestamp). The rules below pin the formatting choices
that the AI would otherwise drift on.
Number formatting
- KPI values (the big number in each tile) — use full digits with
thousands separators (, , ). Do NOT use SI
suffixes like or , even for large values. Executives want exact
numbers, not abbreviations.
- Percent change (in pills and narrative bullets) — always one decimal
place, rounded half-away-from-zero. For example, displays as
, never . Compute on full-precision values; round only at
display time.
- Percentage-point change (for already-percentage metrics like Conversion
Rate or Bounce Rate) — same rounding, suffix . Example: .
- Currency — prefix with thousands separators and no decimals for
values ≥ $100 (); cents only when value < $100 ().
Null / missing data handling
A KPI tile must reflect what the report suite actually returned. The AI must
not silently substitute a different metric or hide a tile to make the
report look cleaner.
- Both periods return 0 or NULL for a KPI being rendered: render the tile
with = , pill class , pill text
, and text =
Both periods returned no data — validate instrumentation
. The tile stays in the grid; do not omit it.
- One period returns valid data, the other 0 / NULL: render the tile with
the valid value as , pill class , pill text , and
text =
Prior {period_noun}: no data
.
- Never substitute a derived metric (e.g., adding "Conversion Rate"
because Revenue came back $0). The visible KPI set MUST match the metrics
selected for this run.
HTML template
Read
and use it verbatim. Do not improvise the
HTML structure or CSS — only fill in the
tokens (
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
) and repeat the KPI tile / detail
row / mover row blocks once per data item. Preserve the
and
.green | .red | .yellow | .grey
modifier classes per the trend rules in
Phase 3.
Section titles — no phase prefix: Section headings in the HTML report must not include
the phase number. Use the plain section name only (e.g., "KPI Scorecards" not "Phase 2 — KPI Scorecards",
"Top Movers" not "Phase 4 — Top Movers").
Write the completed HTML to
/tmp/aa_kpi_pulse_report_<YYYY-MM-DD_HHMMSS>.html
, then open:
bash
open /tmp/aa_kpi_pulse_report_<YYYY-MM-DD_HHMMSS>.html
KPI Card Coloring Rules
- Delta badge green if change >= +2%
- Delta badge red if change <= -2%
- Delta badge grey if between -2% and +2% (flat)
- Border-top on card: green for positive movement, red for negative,
grey for flat
Inline Summary (Always Deliver)
In addition to the HTML report, always provide a brief inline text summary:
KPI Pulse — [Period] vs [Comparison]
Report Suite: [Name]
Metric Current Change
───────────────── ─────── ──────
Visits 124,500 ▲ 18%
Revenue $42,800 ▲ 9%
Conversion Rate 2.4% ▼ 0.3pp
Page Views 398,200 ▲ 11%
Bounce Rate 48.2% ▼ 1.8pp
Key driver: Visits growth led by Paid Search (+34%).
Revenue up on strong Mobile performance (+22%).
Guardrails
- Always confirm the time period with the user before fetching data — wrong
periods are the most common source of confusion.
- Flag partial periods explicitly (e.g., "This month has only 5 days of data").
- For percentage metrics (conversion rate, bounce rate), report deltas as
percentage points (pp), not percent change.
- Cap at 8 metrics for reasonable call volume. Offer a second pulse for
additional metrics if needed.
Example Interaction
"Give me a KPI update for last week."
- Confirm report suite with and .
- Load context with
describeAa(guideType: "REPORT_SUITE_CONTEXT_GUIDE")
.
- Identify top 6 metrics from
listComponentUsage(componentType: "metric")
or user input.
- Confirm: last 7 days vs prior 7 days.
- Run 12 calls (2 per metric) — use , , , and
dimensionId: "variables/daterangeday"
. Sum for each period total.
- Run dimension breakdown for 2 biggest movers (use
dimensionId: "variables/marketingchannel"
).
- Generate HTML report, open it, deliver inline summary.
- Narrative: "Visits were up 18% WoW driven by paid search. Revenue grew 9%
with mobile leading. Bounce rate improved 1.8pp."