If you are using Salesforce as your CRM, chances are you are using the reporting to be able to track your key metrics.
There are different report types to collate information on different areas of the business. This includes reports about accounts and contacts, activity reports (tasks to complete), marketing campaigns and sales engagement, like analysing leads and opportunities. This supports Salesforce’s goal to provide you with a 360-degree view of your members, helping you have better insights into all the different areas of your organisation.
When it comes to building your reports on Salesforce, there are different report types to consider. Here we cover the Salesforce report formats. You can also find some quick tips and advice for reporting.
If you want to learn more about Salesforce reports and dashboards, watch our training videos.
Here are the types of Salesforce reports
1. Tabular reports
The simplest report type, similar to a spreadsheet, displaying data in rows and columns without any grouping or subtotals.
Example: Exporting a list of active members for a mailing campaign
You’re running a campaign and need a clean list of all active members, including names, email addresses, and membership types.
You don’t need grouping or totals, just raw data. A tabular report will provide you with this.
2. Summary reports
Group data by rows, includes calculations and subtotals. This is useful for analysing data based on specific categories or criteria.
Summary reports are a more common and popular Salesforce report as they feed into dashboards.
Example: Tracking membership renewals by region
You want to see how many renewals occurred this quarter, grouped by region and membership level.
This lets you identify high-performing areas or regions needing attention.
3. Matrix reports
Offer a more advanced view by grouping data by both rows and columns, allowing for more complex analysis and cross-tabulations.
Example: Comparing event attendance by event type and member category
You’re analysing how different types of members (e.g. students, professionals, retired) attend different types of events (e.g. webinars, workshops, conferences).
Group by member type (rows) and event type (columns) to see patterns.
4. Joined reports
Joined reports let you bring together data from different report types into one view, making them ideal for complex analysis that draws on multiple data sources or perspectives.
These can be technical to build and are often made by advanced Salesforce users and administrators.
Example: Comparing open support cases with recent event attendance
You want to see if there’s any correlation between members attending events and those submitting support cases.
One report block shows open support cases; another shows recent event registrations – side by side for the same members.
How to choose the right Salesforce report type
Here’s a summary of the difference between report types to help you decide which type of Salesforce report best suits your needs:
1. Tabular reports – Use for simple lists and exports. Ideal for when you need a straightforward list of raw data.
2. Summary reports – Group data with subtotals. Suitable when you want to group data and generate summaries based on these groups. These can also be used to create dashboards.
3. Matrix reports – Compare data across two dimensions. Effective for when you want a pivot-table style view, summarising data in rows and columns. This can help identify trends or patterns among multiple groups.
4. Joined reports – Compare data from different report types or objects. Useful when you need to view multiple report blocks in a single view, especially in complex scenarios.
Salesforce reporting: Quick tips
- Before making a report, it’s good to work out what question you are trying to answer. Then you can work out the type of data you need and the report that will provide it for you.
- If you need to make a dashboard, a tabular report cannot feed into them.
- Work out who will need to look at the dashboard to decide on the level of detail you need to include.
- Consider report performance. If your report is pulling a lot of data from multiple sources, it can run slowly.
- Once you have created your report, you must save it in an appropriate folder, as different people have different levels of access to folders. Permissions depend on roles, groups, and license types. This also means that people can either view, edit or manage the report.
- Make sure to name your reports and folders accurately to help your team find the information they need.
- You can subscribe to a Salesforce report, and you will receive an email reminder. You can have the report emailed daily, weekly or monthly on a specific day and time.
You can watch a demonstration of sharing reporting folders and managing access, presented by one of our experienced Salesforce consultants.
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