The Salesforce customer relationship management (CRM) software is one of the most popular options available on the market. An elegant interface and advanced data analytics are just some of the reasons why this CRM is chosen by so many companies globally. However, in order for a business to make the most out of their Salesforce CRM investment, they should be able to optimize their usage of all the features to their custom needs.

One application of this is through producing the correct and best report type for your data needs. This is something not every user of Salesforce knows how to take advantage of and so in this article, we will have a look at the different report types that Salesforce offers so that you can produce the best data visualization for your company.

Salesforce offers four different types of reports. Each type of report is a template and can be later customized and adjusted. When creating reports you may feel overwhelmed with all the options presented to you in the Salesforce software, but in reality, they are much simpler than they look. Here is a breakdown of the four report types and when they are the most useful. 

Tabular

This type of report is the most simple and easy to read. It lists data and totals with no calculations or subtotals. If you are planning on exporting your data this type of report is recommended. Since this type of report is so easy to read it is commonly used, but if your needs are a bit more complex than simple grand totals of your data then you should look into using a different type of report.

Summary

The summary report is one of the most popular types of Salesforce reports for data visualization. This is because while it keeps a lot of the simplicity of the tabular report, it still adds a bit more information and provides a deeper view of the data. If you are looking to display grouped data, hierarchical data, and/or sub totals then this is the most ideal report.

Matrix

This report is more complex than both the summary and tabular reports and can be very helpful when those templates just aren’t enough. As the name suggests, the matrix report shows a matrix that uses columns and rows to group data. Use this report when you have more complex data. For example if you would like to visualize two dimensional data that may not be correlated. 

Joint

A less commonly used report type is the joint report. This template allows the user to show up to five different groupings of data. Those individual groupings of data can be customized so that they provide the desired information, for example each block of data has its own columns, rows, formulas, summaries etc. This level of customization can be very beneficial when looking to create detailed reports of a lot of data. Using the joint report can allow you to use the aforementioned report types all in one large report. 

We hope this article was useful for you and that you now have a better understanding of the different types of reports in Salesforce and when to use them for the best data visualization. As there are so many features to Salesforce it can be time-consuming to learn and master them all. If you have any further questions or would like to talk to us about your Salesforce needs and issues please do not hesitate to reach out. We are more than happy to help you!