Create Reports with the Report Builder
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you'll be able to:
- Use the drag-and-drop report builder.
- Explain what you can do on the Outline tab, Filter tab, and Fields panel in the report builder.
- Save and run your first report.
Ready to Get Hands-on with Reports and Dashboards?
Create a new Trailhead Playground now to follow along and try out the steps in this module. Scroll to the bottom of this page, click the playground name, and then select Create Playground. It typically takes 3–4 minutes for Salesforce to create your Trailhead Playground. You also use the playground when it's time to complete the hands-on challenges.
Yes, we really mean a brand-new Trailhead playground! If you use an existing org or playground, you can run into problems completing the challenges.
Create a Report
Lance Park, another sales rep at Ursa Major Solar, wants to learn more about his accounts. Let’s help him out by creating an Accounts report.
When you’re ready to preview data, manually refresh the report preview. Or, see sample records returned after each edit by turning automatic previews on.
- In your Trailhead Playground, click the App Launcher
and go to Reports. - Click New Report.
- Select the Accounts report type.
When you choose a report type, you select the records and fields you’re able to see in your report. If you don’t see the report type you’re looking for right away, try changing the category or filtering by objects or fields in the Create Report window. - Click Start Report.
The report builder opens to show settings on the left and a report preview on the right. Whether you see data in the preview depends on the underlying data and the filters that are applied. For now, if you don’t see any data in the preview area, click the All Time link to apply a standard filter that shows results for all time.
- Click Save.
- Save the report as
Direct Customer Accountsand accept the auto-generated unique name. - Click Save.
Before leaving the report builder, let’s take a minute to find out what you can do in the left panel.
- The Outline tab lets you group the report by rows (summary report) or rows and columns (matrix report). We explore these options in the Format Reports unit.
- The Filters tab lets you apply standard filters and add field filters, filter logic, cross-filters, and row limit filters. The number to the right of the tab name indicates the number of filtering restrictions that are currently applied to the report. We explore filtering options in the Filter Your Report unit.
- The Fields panel contains a list of all the fields you can add to your report. The available fields depend on the report type. To show the fields list, click the right-facing arrow, or to hide the list, click X.
To add a field on the Outline or Filtering tab, start typing in the search box and then select from the list of matching fields. Alternatively, find the field in the list on the Fields list and drag it to the Outline or Filter tab or directly to the report preview.
When you’re ready to leave the report builder, click Run to execute the report and go to the report run page.
