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In a previous post we talked about Salesforce reporting and the importance of standardizing and avoiding having multiple folders and reports.
Today we will go a step further and talk about how to improve their performance. A lot of the time users create their own reports that load a lot of information and can take a long time to be ready.
For some solutions, we will take you through 5 best practices that will help to improve the quality and performance of your reports.
1. Use efficient filters
Whenever possible use selective filters. The more selective your filters are, the better the performance. Try to use “equals” or “not equal” expressions instead of “contains” or “does not contain”.
In the same way, choose “AND” rather than “OR” to filter the information.
2. Use time frame filters
Information will be loaded faster with fixed time frames rather than with open-ended ones. So remember in your design to add start dates and end dates to limit the data shown to the specific time period you need that you need.
You can also use relative date values, like “THIS MONTH”, “TOMORROW”, “LAST MONTH”… Apart from helping you with the performance, this makes reports more reusable for future users. A report with a specific date (ex: 05/10/2020) is likely just to find use once, however, a report using the YESTERDAY filter could be used several times
3. Remove unnecessary information
Reduce the amount of information shown to the specific data that you need or you want to show. This means:
• Remove unnecessary columns. Reduce the number of fields by removing unnecessary columns. This is especially important when you are grouping information, for instance in matrix or summary reports.
• Choose “Hide Details” in Advanced filters. If your intention is to show a summary of the data, then choose this option to reduce loading times.
• Filter the information by “My…” or “My Team’s” filter rather than “All” whenever you can.
4. Use dashboards for reports which take a long time to process
Include reports that take a long time to run in Dashboards. Then you can encourage your users to see the information directly in the Dashboard.
Dashboards refresh data for everyone who has access to it, so if users go directly there they will have access to fresher information, and they will not need to run their reports so many times individually.
5. Empty your Recycle Bin.
Apart from removing reports that are not being used it is important too to empty your recycle bin.
If you have been deleting information or purging it, your users will not feel any difference in the performance before emptying the recycle bin. It’s important to note, that while reports are in the recycle bin, queries will still take them into account.
Final Thoughts
In summary, there are lots of different things you can do to ensure your Salesforce reporting functions efficiently. The primary concern should be around refining your data set only to what is strictly necessary.
For more info about how to improve your Salesforce reporting and tackle configuration issues, make sure you check out our report into common Salesforce issues.
