Understand Salesforce Report Types
In the last release, I talked about introducing Reports & Dashboards for Data Cloud. Now, let’s start by talking about the foundation of reporting: Report Types.
When a DMO is mapped in Data Cloud you can automatically report on it using the auto-created standard Report Type. If a particular Report Type doesn’t exist, you can create it using the Custom Report Type UI. With Spring’24, the UI is now expanded, so you can use Data Cloud objects in Custom Report Types. Currently, this is only limited to joining DMOs, but in the future, we will also introduce joining Calculated Insights (CIs).
Let’s have a look at how it works.
A report type acts as a template. It defines the object relationships and the fields included in the report automatically. Salesforce comes with predefined Report Types (Standard Report Types) which you can’t edit and custom Report Types (Custom Report Types) which are created by admins.
Custom Report Types allow you to build a framework in the report wizard, from which users can create and customize reports. You build custom Report Types off the relationships (master-detail and lookup) between objects. A primary object needs to be selected while building a Report Type and all the secondary objects are selected in a linear fashion based on the primary object. For example: if I were to select Accounts as my primary object, I can select my secondary object as Opportunity, Contact, etc (i.e. anything that has a lookup to Account) and so on. I can join up to 4 objects in a custom Report Type.
What are the current features when building a custom report type?
Now, let’s look at the parts that make up a Report Type – the objects and fields within them you want to use. Below you’ll see the options you have available to construct your custom Report Type.
- Object Selection:
- A user can choose which objects to display to users while creating reports and Report Types allow up to 4 object joins.
- Define the relationship between objects.
- Select fields from objects that can be used as columns in reports.
- The visibility of custom Report Types in the report wizard is controlled by users’ access to objects in the Report Type.
- Report Types are associated with categories (created and shipped with our platform).
- A Report Type can be “in development” while an admin is working on it and later change status to “deployed” when it’s ready for use.
- Object joins can be left outer join (A” records may or may not have related “B” records) or inner join (Each “A” record must have at least one related “B” record).
- Field Selection
- Each object has a separate section in the field layout section.
- A user can create a new section and move fields there from multiple objects.
- Sections can be rearranged we want to see them in reports.
- Sections and fields can be renamed by double-clicking on them or clicking on “edit properties”.
- Lookups:
- This is the most powerful Custom Report Type feature.
- Fields can be “added via lookups”, i.e. Account → Account Owner → Email (we can go up to 4 levels here).
Once this Report Type is created, a user can go ahead and start reporting on top of this Report Type. For more details on how to do that, read my previous blog post on reporting on Data Cloud objects.
FAQ
- Keep in mind a Report Type can either join core objects or Data Cloud objects.
- If you select the primary object as anything with a “Data Cloud” label – i.e. “Segment (Data Cloud)” , then you will see all the associated Data Cloud objects that have a relationship with Segment.
- Currently, you cannot join Calculated Insights with other Calculated Insights or DMOs, but you can join DMOs together in order to create a Report Type.
- Data Cloud Reporting is currently not available with identity licenses.
Written by
Your blog is a shining example of excellence in content creation. I’m continually impressed by the depth of your knowledge and the clarity of your writing. Thank you for all that you do.