Salesforce stores the business and customer data, but the professionals need to create the reports in Salesforce to make the informed decisions. The real value comes from turning data into meaningful insights through reports. Creating the report in Salesforce helps you in tracking sales pipelines, monitor team performance, improve forecasting and analyze customer behavior.
A well-structured Salesforce report presents you with real-time insights in a clear format and leads to faster decision-making. So here we tell you the types of Salesforce reports, how to create reports, prerequisites, etc.
About Salesforce Reports
The Salesforce reports are the list of records, including contacts, opportunities, and accounts that meet specific criteria, usually shown in rows and columns. Reports group, filter, and analyze the CRM data to visualize key metrics in charts or graphs. It acts as a real-time snapshot of business performance and allows you to track progress and make data-driven decisions.
Types of Salesforce Reports
The four popular types of reports in Salesforce are the tabular, summary, joined, and matrix. Each report is suitable to show different kinds of data, on the basis of what you want out of it. Let us understand each report with its uses.
| Report Type | Usage | Suitable for |
| Tabular | Simple list of items | Basic lists like mailing lists or “All Active Accounts.” |
| Summary | Grouping rows of data | Grouping opportunities by “Stage” or “Owner” and Sales leaderboards |
| Matrix | Grouping by both rows & columns | Compare totals across different time regions or periods (e.g., Sales by Month and Region). |
| Joined | Multiple views in one report | Compare the different types of data, like “Support Cases” to “Sales Opportunities”. |
Let us tell you about each type in detail below
Tabular
Tabular reports are a simple type of report. It shows the data in table format with rows and columns like a spreadsheet. It is suitable for creating list of records or basic data overview without subtotals or grouping.
Summary Reports
Summary reports provides subtotals by grouping data together. It organize data in hierarchy. It allow the users to group rows of data, that is summarized to give totals, averages and calculations.
Matrix
The another kind of report in Salesforce is Matrix reports. It is similar to the summary reports but grouping data by both rows and columns. It make these reports useful for comparing totals and understand relationships between data sets. It give the cross tabular view of data, and shows data in grids.
Joined Reports
Joined reports show you data in blocks and give multiple views in a single report. It is useful to perform complex analyses that require data from different sources and views. Each report block in this report has its filters, fields, and grouping.
Prerequisites for Creating Reports
Fulfilling the necessary Prerequisites is important to create reports in Salesforce. Here are the necessary requirements to meet
- You must choose from the viewer, editor, manager, compare, and enhanced access levels on the basis of the reports you are creating.
- You should also access reports and dashboards.
- Set the user permissions and define the level of access to reports or the dashboard folder.
- In this way, you allow the administrators to control how users can access reports and dashboards by granting or revoking rights.
- You should also define the type of reports as per your objective. Ensure that the data used in the report is up to date and valid, as it leads to inaccurate report results and impacts decision-making.
- Decide the type of reports wisely as per the audience, so they look presentable and understandable. For example, if you are creating a report in Salesforce for management purposes, then prepare a summary report rather than a tabular report.
How to Create Reports in Salesforce?
Here is the step-by-step guide to follow to create reports in CRM by using Salesforce Lightning Report Builder
Create New Salesforce Report
You should look at the horizontal bar for the “reports” object to find the CRM report. If you don’t see this tab, then look at the
- Objects in the ” more” tab or use App Launcher to search for it.
- Now, on the reports page, tap on the ” new report” button to launch the Salesforce Lightning Report Builder.
Choose Report Type
Now, choose the CRM reports type and tap on the ” continue” option. Keep in mind that the reports list is big and ranges from the various types of ” opportunities”, ” accounts”, ” cases”, ” deals”, etc. To simplify your search, you must start typing in some keywords. For example, if you want a report on deals, then click and type in ” deals”, and you see exact results for that.
Filter your Data
To create accurate reports with specific insights, you can use the filter panel on the left. It allows you to set the scope of data like “ all time” or “ my deals”. Here’s how you can do it
- Find the “ status” field
- Tap on ” status” filter type and select what status you want to show ( like won, lost ones, open deal status, or others)
- Tap on the ” apply” option to refresh the preview.
If you want to see other filters by using report filter logic in Salesforce, then you can tap on all field names and then decide what other fields you want to create a report on.
Tap on the Outline Pane to show fields/columns
To add or remove more columns in reports, you can use the ” outline” pane. You can do it easily by using the simple drag-and-drop feature. For example, the deal name is not sufficient in the report. So if you want to add an estimated closed date, then you can just type “Est. Close Date” in the Columns section, and it filters your results. You can cross-check or tap on and drag the fields over the report on the right, and to the respective location where required.
Group Your Data
If you want to group the “estimated closed date” data in a report, then you can type in the ” groups” section “Est. Close Date” and see filtered results again.
Moreover, if you want to group ” deals” by “Est. Close Date”, then you can group data by day, calendar week, calendar month, etc.
Save Report in Salesforce
Now, it is time to save the report. Here is how you can save a report in Salesforce
- Tap on “ save & run”
- Complete ” save report” details by entering ” report name”, “unique name”, and ” report description.”
- Select the folder to save the report. Note that if you need to make it visible to you only, then choose “private reports folder”. Choose ” public reports folder” if you want to make it visible for the organisation.
- Tap on the ” save” option.
This is how you can create the reports in Salesforce. To make the data more actionable, you must link your reports to Salesforce dashboards. Dashboards help to transform rows of data into visual components like bar graphs or pie charts. It helps the stakeholders to make data-driven and faster decisions.
How to Share a Report in Salesforce
Here are the steps you can follow to share reports in Salesforce
- Select the ” reports” tab from the navigation bar
- Tap on the name of the report you want to share
- Once you open the report, look at the ” share” button. It is usually located at the top right of the report page.
- Tap on the share button. A sharing window opens in front of you
- In the sharing window, you can select how you want to share the report. You can select to share it with
- Users: Specific users in your Salesforce organization
- Roles: Users in specific roles
- Public groups: Predefined user groups
- Manager groups: Managers and direct reports
- Now set the permissions and specify the level of access you want to grant
- Viewer: To view access to users, not to edit it
- Editor: View and edit the report
- Now tap on the ” share” button to share the reports with selected recipients.
After sharing the report, you can get a notification, and it will be accessible to a set of users according to the permissions you set. By following these steps, you can share the Salesforce reports easily with teams and ensure that everyone has access to the insights they require.
Best Practices to Create Reports in Salesforce
Here are the effective practices you can follow while creating reports in Salesforce
Keep it simple
Prepare the simple and structured reports in Salesforce. Avoid adding unnecessary fields and data in it add only focus on key metrics.
Use consistent formatting
Maintains consistency in formatting while making reports, and ensures that it is easy to read and interpret. Use the same fonts, colors, and styles throughout your reports. Consistent formatting helps you to keep a presentable look.
Schedule and Automate Reports
Use the Salesforce’s scheduling and automation features while preparing reports. It helps you to schedule reports at specific timings and send them to stakeholders automatically. It ensures the consistent and timely reporting.
Use Dashboards
Use the Dashboards to get visual overview of reports. Dashboards are interactive and customized and fits to your users needs. You can combine the multiple reports into single Dashboards and get complete view of your business data.
Improve continuously
Regularly review and refine the reports in Salesforce to meet your needs. Consistent feedback from stakeholders helps you to make necessary adjustments and keep up to date and reliable reports.
Common Salesforce Reporting Mistakes to Avoid
A report in Salesforce delivers you valuable business insights, but poorly created reports cause confusion, slow decision-making, and inaccurate analysis. Some common mistakes affect your data reliability and productivity. Here are the mistakes you should avoid
Use Too Many Columns
Don’t add excessive fields in reports; it becomes difficult to read and analyze. Only add relevant data points that adhere to your business objective and increase usability.
Ignore Quality Issues
Identify and fix the reports quality issues, if any. Eliminate the outdated entries, missing information and duplicate records to improve your reports, and simplify decision-making.
Apply Unnecessary Filters
Don’t use the Overcomplicated filters while creating reports otherwise it hide important data. Keep filtering logic relevant, simple and aligned to report purpose and get clear business insights.
Not Grouping Data
If you keep ungrouped data while creating reports in salesforce, then it become difficult to analyze. So group by categories like sales rep , region or stage is recommended to identify patterns easily.
Forget Visual Charts
Don’t focus on text over visual charts in reports, otherwise it reduce reliability and engagement. It is suggested to add more charts like bar graphs, pie charts, etc in reports to make it easy to analyze for teams.
Ignoring Report Performance
Don’t affects the CRM performance by create large reports with unnecessary filters and fields. Optimize the reports structure to improve user experience and loading speed.
Conclusion
Creating reports in Salesforce is important to analyze data and make decisions effortlessly. You can easily create the reports by following the above guide. These reports give valuable data to your team, meet strategic objectives, foster growth, improve operations, increase productivity, and ensure compliance.
