According to Adobe, the following factors can contribute to longer report generation times. Increasing one of these might not result in a timeout for that report, but it could be a factor. Additionally, it might delay other reports in the report suite queue and cause a subsequent report to timeout. In general, the greater the number of requests to retrieve the data for a Workspace, the longer it will take the report to fully load.
Longest Report Date Range
The largest factor that affects report generation time is the number of months requested. Reducing the number of months from three to one decreases generation time significantly, but reducing the time range from one month to one week does not have a significant impact on report generation time. Workspaces with report periods over a year can significantly slow down the report rendering.
Number of unique values
Reports that contain hundreds of thousands of unique values generate more slowly than reports that contain fewer unique values, even if a segment or filter reduces the number of values that ultimately appear in a report. For example, a report that displays search terms typically generates more slowly than other reports, even if a filter is applied to show only search terms that contain a specific value.
Number of used metrics
Each metric is another report request. As the number of metrics increases, the report run time increases. Removing metrics often improves report generation time.
Number of used correlations
Within a report, each breakdown represents a separate request and each request is subject to an individual timeout. While individual requests may complete quickly, running many breakdowns in a single report can slow down report generation time and could also affect the report suite queue. Typically, a user runs one or maybe two levels of breakdown at a time so this is usually not an issue.
Number of used segments and their complexity
Segments that consider many dimensions or have many (24+) rules increase the processing impact and increase the report generation time. Segments this complex are not typical.
Number of available components
The total number of components retrieved in the left rail of the project, across all report suites in the project. This includes dimensions, metrics, segments, dates. This will impact the speed in which the left rail loads and how fast search results are returned within it.
The number of Free Form cells
The total number of Freeform table cells in the project, calculated by rows * columns across all tables in the Workspace (excludes hidden data sources). The Abobe guideline is to use less than 4000.
Number of expanded panels
A single workspace can have multiple panels and these can be open or collapsed when the report is loading. Adobe suggests limiting the number of expanded panels out of the total number of panels to 5.
Number of expanded visualizations
This is the number of expanded tables and visualizations out of the total in the project when the report is loading, including hidden data sources. Adobe suggests limiting the number of open visualizations to 15.
Report Suite Queue
Each report suite maintains a separate queue of requests. If many reports are requested simultaneously, even from separate users, some number of reports are generated simultaneously. Any additional reports are put in the queue. As reports complete, remaining reports are generated in the order in which they were received. If a large number of complex reports are already in the report suite queue, a report that typically generates quickly might time out.
Internet connection speeds
The slower internet connection speeds will lead to slower report rendering.