Reports in Salesforce

Every action that takes place in a team needs a statistical report that provides information regarding performance. Reports and dashboards in Salesforce give answers to questions that are important for an organization/business.

For example,

How many leads got converted into accounts?

Which sales team has generated the maximum leads?

How many employees got a bonus of more than 20% this year?

The answers to these questions are provided using Reports & Dashboards in Salesforce. This feature automatically gives answers to these questions by using the data (records) present in the different objects in the organization.

What are Reports in Salesforce?

A set of records displayed in a list form based on specific criteria is called Reports in Salesforce. These are tabular or similar to tabular representation (with the option to display charts) of the list of records that meet your criterion that gives an answer to question(s). This list of records in reports can be filtered or grouped based on any field.

What is the Salesforce Report Type?

Based on the requirements, records, and fields available, there are different report types in Salesforce. Every report that you build is based on a particular report type. The report type is selected first when you create a report.

Every report type has a primary object and one or more related objects. All these objects must be linked together either directly or indirectly.

However, a report type cannot include more than four objects. Once a report is created, its report type cannot be changed. Let’s look at the types of reports in Salesforce.

Types of Reports in Salesforce

There are two main types of reports in Salesforce: standard and custom. Both have different features and object fields.

1. Standard Report Types

Standard Report Types cannot be customized and automatically include standard and custom fields for each object within the report type. They get created when an object or relationship is created. Standard report types always have inner joins.

2. Custom Report Types

Custom report types are reporting templates created to streamline the reporting process. An administrator or a user with “Manage Custom Report Types” permission can make these reports. When standard report types cannot specify which records will be available on reports, a custom report is the go-to option.

In custom report types, you can identify objects that will be available in a particular report. The primary object must have a relationship with other objects present in a report type, either directly or indirectly. Object relationships that Custom Report Types support can:

• Include all records that have children.
• Include all records that may or may not have children.

Note:

• Once a report type is saved, its primary object can’t be changed.
• Suppose the primary object on a report type is a custom object, and the custom object is deleted. In that case, the report type and any reports created from it will also be automatically deleted.
• If you remove an object from a report type, all references to that object and its associated objects are automatically removed from reports and dashboards based on that type.
• After selecting the report type, we switch to the report builder to create a report.

Read More:

Salesforce Interview Questions on Reports and Dashboards (2024)

How to Create a Report in Salesforce?

The report builder tools come in handy when creating reports in Salesforce. Here are the steps to build a report in Salesforce:

1. Navigate to the Reports tab from your application.
2. Next, select the “New Report” button from the display. All of the report kinds—both new custom report types and Standard report types—that are available in the organization are displayed here.
3. For the report you intend to create, choose the report type.
4. Select the “Start Report” option. This will take you to the report builder tool, where you can create a report tailored to your company’s requirements.

Report Builder in Salesforce 

The report builder in Salesforce is a visual editor for reports. It lets administrators or users straightforwardly create reports. It contains three main components:

1. Fields Pane: It displays the fields that are available from a particular report type.
2. Filters Pane: This pane allows us to set additional filters that limit the records available in a report. Criteria here include view, time frame, and custom filters.
3. Preview Pane: Preview Pane shows how the report will look like. This page allows you to add, reorder, and remove columns, summary fields, formulas, groupings, and blocks. It also lets you change the report format and display a chart based on the report.

Note: The preview pane only shows a limited number of records. Run the report to see all the results.

What are Scheduled Reports in Salesforce?

Sometimes, the same kind of report is required at frequent intervals. Scheduled reports in Salesforce were introduced to ease the process without running a report manually. These are designed to schedule reports for future runs to get the latest report data.

In this process, you have to assign a starting date, end date frequency, and time to which the report is to be triggered automatically. You can set up to 200 scheduled reports. Remember that joined reports can not be used to schedule reports.

Benefits of Scheduling Reports in Salesforce

There are various benefits to scheduling a report in Salesforce. You can: 

• Get the latest report data without having to run the report.
• Get the data automatically at regular intervals you specify through scheduling on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
• Get the report sent to you in HTML format, with a link for easy access to the source report in your org.

Formats of Reports in Salesforce

There are four formats of reports available in Salesforce that provide a variety of options. 

1. Tabular Reports

This is the most basic report format. It just displays the row of records in a table with a total. While easy to set up, they can’t be used to create groups of data or charts. They are mainly used to generate a simple list or a list with a total sum.

For example, a company is having customer support representative who resolves customer’s cases. The company wants to see the data of all the solved cases. So, a tabular report can be created.

2. Summary Reports

It is the most commonly used type of report. It allows the grouping of rows (not columns) of data, viewing subtotal, and creating charts. Whenever we want a number concerning another column, we need a summary report. The summary report is possible only after making a group.

For example, a company’s sales team needs to analyze how many leads are converting from each lead source; in this case, a report is required to be created, which will display the data of converted leads of every lead source.

3. Matrix Report

It is the most complex report format, which summarizes information in a grid format. As such, records are grouped by both column(s) and row(s). It can also be used to generate dashboards. Charts can be added to this type of report.

For Example, Sales Managers in a company sell products in different regions and industries. To see which products are performing well, we need to create a matrix report grouped by region and industry.

Note: The “Stacked Bar” chart can be added to the matrix report but cannot be added to the summary report.

4. Joined Reports 

Joined reports allow us to create different views of data from multiple report types. Data in joined reports are organized in blocks. Each block acts as a sub-report with its fields, columns, sorting, and filtering. Joined reports are used to group and show data from multiple report types in different views.

For Example, A company sells both software and hardware products. They need to analyze their sales in various regions for hardware products as well as software products. So, two reports (“Hardware Sales by Region” and “Software Sales by Region”) are created. After that, a joined report can be made to display both reports.

Key Points To Remember

• Only the configurations of the report get saved when we save a report. The data is always evaluated in real-time (when a report is run). The report can be run manually, and it can be scheduled to run automatically based on the running user.
• The data which is displayed in reports is based on the running user’s sharing and security settings. But when we schedule a report, we have to select a running user based on the security and sharing settings in which the report is generated.
• Every report is saved in a particular folder. Users who have access to the report folders can run the report.
• Each user, group, or role can have its own level of access to a folder.
• When we want to show the data of 2 objects on the same report, these objects may or may not be related. In this type of report, we can select multiple report types.

Types of Access Level of Folders

With the help of these access settings, you can decide who gets to see the reports in Salesforce in which access level. There are three types of access levels of folders:

1. Viewer: With this access level, users can see the data in a report but cannot make any changes except cloning it into a new report.
2. Editor: With this access level, users can view and modify the reports it contains. In Edit access, we can’t add the user.
3. Manager: With this access level, users can do everything Viewers & Editors can do, plus they can also control other users’ access levels to this folder. Also, users with Manager Access levels can rename or delete the report.

Things to Remember

1. By default, a person who creates a folder is the Manager of that folder.
2. If a folder does not have Manager Access, then it is public, and users with “View Reports in Public folders” can view it. Depending on their object access, these users can run the report. Reports present in public folders can also be emailed to Salesforce users.
3. If a user is not ready to share their report, then they should save it in the “My Personal Custom Reports” folder. Reports can be exported in .xlsx format or.csv format. The report displays up to 2000 rows of data. More extensive reports can be emailed to Excel.
4. Access to run the report depends on the folder, but the data that is seen in the report relies on the security of the user (object level, field level, record level).
5. We can not save the single report in 2 folders, but in another folder, a copy is saved, not the original.
6. A user cannot create a report on an object to which they do not have access.

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