The Lightning Report Builder is powerful, and there is so much functionality available to you and your users. Let’s review the Lightning Report Builder interface in detail to uncover some of those hidden gems ? ! We’ll use a sample Opportunity Pipeline report as an example to walk through and highlight some of the useful features of the Lightning Report Builder.
Firstly, a key feature that allows you to preview the modifications you are making in the Fields, Outline, and Filters Panes is the Update Preview Automatically checkbox. Select this if you want to always preview how the report will look before running it.
On the left is the Fields Pane. This initially appears collapsed, but you can simply click the arrow to expand the pane. One convenient feature of the Fields Pane is the search capability where you can search for a specific type of field, like text, date, numeric, checkbox, or picklist. This whittles down a large number of fields into just what you’re looking for with one simple click. In the image below, I’m showing only the picklist fields in this Opportunity Pipeline report.
Next to the Fields Pane are the Outline and Filters Panes. The Outline Pane is where you organize which rows and columns appear in your report. You can easily create different groupings by dragging and dropping fields into the pane or typing the field name into the appropriate area.
Two not-to-miss features here are the “Swap rows and columns” icon and the “Remove all groups” icon at the top right. Swapping rows and columns does exactly that. Removing groups does that too, but be mindful that when you do this, because fields then go back to the Fields Pane, you’ll need to re-add them to the report columns if you want them displayed.
In the drop-down next to the Columns is where you can add bucket columns, summary formulas, row-level formulas, or remove all columns in the report to start fresh. There is a LOT of functionality here, and we have an entire blog post dedicated to these advanced features. Be sure to take a look at this blog post for more info.
The Filters Pane is one of the most powerful features of the Lightning Report Builder, as this is where you define exactly what criteria your records need to meet to get displayed in the report. For example, maybe you need to review records from only the current quarter or look at a specific opportunity status. The Filters Pane lets you segment the data to help focus your analysis.
Lastly, the report footer has a valuable option that can narrow what you are viewing. Toggle between showing the detail records or not. If you turn it off, you can review a quick summary or turn it back on to see the records in the report.
Be sure to regularly visit this page for all of your reporting and dashboard needs!
Check out the Analytics Page to learn more about best practices for reporting.
Reports and dashboards are one of the go-to tools admins can use to make data actionable. I’ve heard countless stories from admins about how they built a dashboard, showed leadership, and got a “This is amazing!” response. Admins have shown me reports and dashboards to track all sorts of key performance indicators (KPIs) that have […]
If you’ve tuned into any podcast or blog post on data recently, chances are you’ve heard data referred to in lofty terms. “The oil of the 21st century” and “the lifeblood of any business” are some that come to mind for me. What is definitely true, in the context of your Salesforce environment, is that […]
Twenty years ago, while managing systems for the IT team at a small software company, I was encouraged by our CEO to think of myself as a business person first and an IT person second. He knew of my love for working with systems and data, and suggested that employing those talents to optimize processes […]
