Blockers with “Create Reports and Dashboards for Sales and Marketing Managers” Project

Inform Stakeholders with Reports and Dashboards

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Hello fellow Trailblazers, If you are pursuing any of the following trails, then you must complete the “Create Reports and Dashboards for Sales and Marketing Managers” Project Module.

1. Administer Salesforce from Anywhere During COVID-19
2. Learn Admin Essentials in Lightning Experience

Now, this blog is going to be long and when I am saying long I mean it. One and the only reason for that is, this blog is talking about Project Module.

Projects are considered to be one of the easiest modules to attempt as all the steps are specified and we only need to follow them in an org or trailhead playground.

But still, there are a few places that we may ignore in the first attempt and are so minute that we can’t even notice it. For all these situations this blog is really helpful.

Create Reports and Dashboards for Sales and Marketing Managers Badge

So, if you are stuck in any of the units of the given Module and want to attain the above badge, then let’s proceed…

But before proceeding further my suggestion would be to go with this module with a new Trailhead Playground. Though it is not mentioned there can be circumstances when you wouldn’t be able to see the “Create Folder” button if you would be using some old Trailhead Playground. So, if you don’t want to face any such issue then it would be better to start with a new Trailhead Playground and in case if you are already facing any such issue then the only resolution is to go with a new Trailhead Playground.

Unit 1- Create Reports and Dashboard Folders

This unit focuses on creating folders for Reports and Dashboards. It asks us to create the following folders for Reports and Dashboards

Folders for Reports

Global Sales Reports

Admin Lightning Experience Reports

Marketing Reports

Adoption Reports

Folders for Dashboards

Global Sales Dashboards

Now, it's clear that for dashboards we need to create only one folder. But for Reports, we need to create four folders.

One common mistake that we can commit here is related to the hierarchy of the Reports folders. Make sure that for reports “Global Sales Reports” is the parent folder and “Admin Lightning Experience Reports”, “Marketing Reports” and “Adoption Reports” are child folders (sub-folders) of the Parent.

Other than creating folders, this unit also wants us to share these folders with the sales team. Hence we need to share the “Global Sales Reports” and “Global Sales Dashboards” folder with the following Roles-

Channel Sales Team

Eastern Sales Team

Western Sales Team

[NOTE: The subfolders Admin Lightning Experience Reports, Marketing Reports, and Adoption Reports will automatically be shared with the same teams as their parent folder.]

Unit 2- Create a Simple Custom Report

In this unit, we need a create a Summary Report on Opportunity. But before creating the Summary Report, it asks us to make the following changes in our Org or Trailhead Playground.

• Change your user Role to “CEO”

CEO Role option for Our User

• Change “Close Date” for all the opportunities to Today’s Date.

Updating Closed Date of all Opportunities

Make sure to check the “Update 31 Selected Items” before clicking on Apply button.

Once these changes have been implemented successfully we can proceed to create the Summary Report on Opportunities.

Take care of the following things while creating the Summary Report.

• Make sure the Report Type for the report should be “Opportunities”.
• Group the rows of the Report by the “Opportunity Owner” field.

Group Rows by Opportunity Owner

• Make sure that the Close Date filter is set to “Current FQ”.

Close Date as Current FQ

• Make sure to change the Opportunity Status filter is set to “Open”.

Opportunity Status as Open

• Make sure to remove the following listed columns.
  - Owner Role
  - Fiscal Period
  - Age
  - Created Date
  - Next Step
  - Lead Source
  - Type
  You should only be left with the following columns.

Remaining Columns for the Report

• Make sure to summarize the report with “Sum” of “Amount”.

Summarizing the Amount field for Sum

• Finally, make sure to save the report with the following details before Verifying the Steps.
  - Report Name: Opportunities by Rep
  - Description: What opportunities do reps have in the pipeline?
  - Report folder: Global Sales Reports

Save Report Modal

and Hurray! 2nd unit also got verified. So, let’s proceed with the 3rd unit.

Unit 3- Filter Your Reports

As the name suggests, this unit will talk about Report Filters. So, in this unit, we will not only create a new Report but we’ll also apply Filter on that report. So let’s proceed…

While creating Report take care of the following things-

• Make sure the Report Type to be “Accounts”.
• Make sure the following filters are applied.
  - Show Me filter: All Accounts
  - Created Date filter: All Time

Show Me and Created Date Filters

• Make sure to remove the following columns.
  - Last Activity
  - Last Modified Date
• Make sure to add the “Annual Revenue” column and place it between the “Account Name” and “Billing State/Province” columns.

Adding Annual Revenue Column

Once all these settings are done we can proceed to apply filters and filter logic to the Report.

Apply the following filters with specified values.

• “Type” filter- “contains” operator- “customer” as value.

Type filter for the Report

• “Billing State/Province” filter- “equals” operator- “TX,NC,IL,NY” values.

Billing State/Province filter for the Report

• “Rating” filter- “equals” operator- “Hot, Warm” values.

Rating filter for the Report

• “Annual Revenue” filter- “greater or equal” operator- “2000000” value.

Annual Revenue filter for the Report

Once all these filters are applied successfully, we can move on to apply Filter Logic. Apply the following Filter logic for the filters.

Filter logic of the Filters

Now, all that we need to do is to save the report with the following information.

Save Report Modal for “Central & Eastern Target Accounts”

Now, the last thing that is left in this unit is to create the last report on the Users, for the “Users Not Logged in Last 7 Days”. The interesting thing in this report is to specify “Relative Dates” for the “Last Login” field to specify a filter. Please specify the following details for saving the Report.

Save Report Modal for “Users Not Logged in Last 7 Days”

Unit 4- Group and Categorize Your Data

This unit asks us to deal with grouping data in Reports and Bucket Fields. Two of the most interesting and important tasks that we perform on reports. For grouping data in reports, we‘re going to modify our “Opportunities by Rep” report.

Make sure you perform the following modifications in the “Opportunities by Rep” report.

• Verify that the “Opportunity Owner” Column is grouped by row.

Opportunity Owner grouped by Row

• Make the Close Date column to “Group Columns by This Field”.

Close Date as Group Columns by This Field

• Click on the Arrow, next to the Close Date column and make “Group Date By” as “Calendar Month”.

Close Date as Group date by Calendar Month

• Verify that the “Detail Rows” and “Stacked Summaries” toggles are deselected at the bottom of the screen.

Detail Rows and Stacked Summaries Toggle buttons

and that’s it. One of the common mistakes that we may commit here is while saving the Report. We are going to create a new report from the old one and hence instead of Saving the record, we should use Save As and provide the details as shown below.

Save Report Modal for “Opportunities by Rep and Close Month”

Now, the next step in this unit is to create a bucket field. We can quickly categorize report records without creating a formula or a custom field by bucketing them. When we create a bucket column, we define multiple categories (buckets) used to group report values. Like any other column in our report, we can sort, filter, and group by bucket columns.

So, we would first create a new Report on Opportunities with the following configuration-

• Report Type- Opportunities
• Close Date filter- Current FQ
• Opportunity Status filter- Open
• Columns to remove:
  - Owner Role
  - Fiscal Period
  - Age
  - Created Date
  - Lead Source
  - Type

Once done with these changes, we are ready to proceed with Bucket Field. We are going to create a Bucket Field on the Amount column categorizing it into “Small”, “Medium” and “Large”. To make a bucket column click on the arrow next to the “Columns” option in the “Outline” panel.

Add Bucket Column

Provide the bucket column information as shown in the below screenshot.

Edit Bucket Column Modal

Now, the only thing we are left with is to group the report by Stage (Group Rows by This Field), Opportunity Owner (Group Rows by This Field) and Size (Group Columns by This Field). We also need to deselect the Detail Rows, Subtotals and Grand Total toggle buttons at the bottom of the page. After grouping the columns and deselecting the toggle keys the report might look something as below.

Opportunity Report after Bucket Field and Grouping

So, verify the steps for this unit, and let’s move to the next one.

Unit 5- Use Summary Formulas in Your Reports

So, as the name suggests we are going to create a Summary Formula for this unit. We would be creating a new report (cloned from an existing report) with the following settings-

Report Name- Sales Rep Win Rates

Description- How well are my sales reps closing?

Report Folder- Global Sales Reports

Cloned From- Opportunities by Rep

Report Filter- Opportunity Status: Closed

Summary Formula:
- Column Name: Win Rate
- Description: Ratio of won to closed opportunities
- Formula Output Type: Percent
- Decimal Points: 2
- Formula: WON:SUM/CLOSED:SUM

Toggle to Deselect- Detail Rows

and we are done. That’s right this unit is quite straightforward. Just make sure to use “Save As” instead of “Save” as we are cloning a report here. So, verify the steps and let’s move on to the next unit.

Unit 6- Manage Reported Data

Well, this unit is as simple as the previous one it is simpler than the previous one. In this unit, we are going to export our report. Just make sure about the following configuration while exporting the report.

Report to export- Users Not Logged in Last 7 Days

Format- Comma Delimited .csv

Encoding- ISO-8859–1 (General US & Western European, ISO-LATIN-1)

Exported File Name- Users Not Logged in Last 7 Days Export Details

and that’s it. We are ready to verify this unit and move to the last unit of this module.

Unit 7- Visualize Your Data

So, here comes the last unit of this module and we are that much close to getting our next badge. This unit is to create a report chart and dashboard. For creating a chart make sure for the following settings-

• Report Name- Sales Rep Win Rates
• Chart Type- Column Chart
• Chart Title: Sales Rep Win Rates
• Y-Axis: Win Rate

and the chart is ready. After running the report it might look something as shown below-

Sales Reps Win Rates Chart

For creating the Dashboard make sure to provide the following details-

• Name- Global Sales Dashboard
• Folder- Global Sales Dashboards

This dashboard will contain the following components-

COMPONENT # 1

Report- Opportunities by Rep

Chart Type- Vertical Bar Chart

Y-Axis- Record Count

Show Values box- Selected

Chart Title- Sales Pipeline

Chart Subtitle- Number of Open Opportunities by Rep

COMPONENT # 2

Report- Opportunities by Rep

Chart Type- Metric

Measure- Sum of Amount

Display Units- Shortened Number

Chart Title- Total Open Opportunities

Chart Footer- Value of open opps in sales pipeline

COMPONENT # 3

Report- Sales Rep Win Rates

Chart Type- Lightning Table

Columns to Remove:
- Account Name
- Stage
- Expected Revenue

Chart Title- Opportunities Won

COMPONENT # 4

Report- Sales Rep Win Rates

Chart Type- Gauge Component

Measure- Win Rate

Chart Title- Company Win Rate

Chart Footer- Ratio of won to closed opps

After making all these required changes our Dashboard might look something as shown below.

Global Sales Dashboard

So, what are you waiting for? Go and verify your steps.

Congratulations on earning a new Badge.

Congratulations!!!

Hope to see you soon in the next blog.

Till then Take Care and “Happy Trailblazing”…