Introduction

As Admins, we’ll be required to find answers to questions that make or break our organization. Leaders to end users require reports with timely, vital, up-to-date, actionable information on them. We worked with reports and filter types, but now it’s time to level by diving deep into Report Formats.

The Report Format determines how the results of a report are laid out. Salesforce offers three different report formats in Lightning Experience: Tabular, Summary, and Matrix.

Tabular Reports

Tabular Reports are quite similar to a spreadsheet, and they include a list of rows and columns. However, they cannot be used to create a group of data or charts and cannot be accessed by a dashboard unless the number of rows is limited.

Example: Generating a mailing list, all open opportunities, etc.

Follow these steps to create a tabular report that displays all open opportunities:

1. Navigate to Reports, and then select New Report.

2. For Report Type, select Opportunities.

3. Click Start Report.

4. Open Filters from the sidebar and add the following filters:

• For Show Me, select All Opportunities. Click Done.
• For the Date filter, select Created Date. For Range, select All Time, and click Apply.
• For Opportunity Status, select Open. Click Apply.

5. Click Save.

6. Name the report as Open Opportunities.

7. Click Run to view the report.

The report should be similar to this:

Summary Reports

Summary Reports are quite similar to Tabular Reports, but they allow us to group rows of data, view subtotals, generate charts, and are perfect for dashboards!

Example: View the number of opportunities per account, group report by account name, etc.

Let’s create a summary report! We want to view all Opportunities grouped by Account Name:

1. Navigate to Reports, and click New Report.

2. Choose Opportunities for Report Type, and then click Start Report.

3. Open Filters from the sidebar and add the following filters:

• For the Show Me filter, select All Opportunities, then click Done.
• For the Date filter, select Created Date. For Range, select All Time. Click Apply.

4. Open Outlines from the sidebar, and click Add Group under Group Rows.

5. Select Account Name from the dropdown menu.

6. To view just the total number of Opportunities per Account, turn off Detail Rows. You can find it at the bottom of the preview page.

7. Click Save.

8. For Report Name, enter Opportunities by Account, then click Save.

9. Click Run. The report should be similar to this:

Matrix Reports

These reports can be quite time-consuming, but they provide the most comprehensive view of our data. Matrix Reports can be considered an extension of Summary Reports, here we can group records both by row and by column. So, why Matrix Reports? They’re easier to understand and give you the complete picture at-a-glance.

Examples: Sales by type for each month, Opportunities by Type per Account

Let’s get Hands-on and create a Matrix Report. In the last section, we created a Summary Report for Opportunities per Account, let’s convert that into a Matrix Report in a few steps. We want Opportunities by Type per Account. In addition to that, we want to summarize the report by Amount, we’ll do that in the second step.

1. Navigate to Reports, and open the Report, Opportunities by Account, that you created in the last section.

2. To summarize the report by amount, click on the dropdown menu in the Amount column. Then click Summarize and choose Sum.

Now that we’ve summarized the report by Amount let’s move on to the main event. → Making this a Matrix Report.

3. Open Outlines from the sidebar, and then click Add group under Add Columns, and then select Type.

4. Click Save.

That’s it! This might seem complicated at first, but as you progress, you’ll be a pro at this!

5. We want our org to be up-to-date and contain reliable information, so click on the pencil icon and change the name of the org to Opportunities by Type per Account.

6. Click Run.

The final result should be similar to this:

NOTE: IF you need only Closed Won Opportunities, go to Filters from the sidebar, and apply Closed Won for Opportunity Status.

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