How to create a report in Salesforce

Salesforce is a customer relationship management tool tons of people use to manage sales and report on performance. Since creating reports is an integral part of reporting, you’d think the powers that be would make it pretty straightforward.

If you’re here right now, that’s because, for whatever reason, they did not.

While it may not be obvious, the good news is that it’s still pretty simple, which is the next best thing. So if you’ve been struggling to make the reports you need, here’s how to create a report in Salesforce.

Open the Reports tab and start a new report
Adjust your report and run it
Create a summary report by grouping rows
Create a matrix report by grouping columns
Add a chart

Types of reports in Salesforce

Salesforce reports break down into standard reports and custom reports. Standard reports are based on Salesforce’s existing templates you can plug and play, while custom reports are ones you build from scratch based on specific data parameters. This walkthrough is for standard reports.

As you start a report and add more complexity to it, you’ll find that these reports break down further into four formats:

Tabular: These spreadsheet-like reports are the simplest, displaying your data as a series of lines in sortable rows and columns.
Summary: When you apply conditional details to your tabular report rows, you get a summary report. This type allows you to segment data groups with charts and separate calculations.
Matrix: A step up from summary reports, these reports allow you to tabulate a more complex matrix with groupings in both rows and columns.
Joined: When you need combinations of all the above, joined reports allow you to separate different report types into their own blocks to compare within the same interface.

Salesforce report tutorial

If the report types above sound abstract, you’ll see what I mean as I walk through the Salesforce reporting steps. Since they build in complexity, I’ll touch on (almost) each one as I go. (I’m skipping joined reports: while many of the steps are similar, there’s also enough complexity involved that it’s just a bit outside the bounds of this general guide to building reports in Salesforce.)

Step 1: Open the Reports tab and start a new report

Screenshot of the reports dashboard in Salesforce

From any dashboard, you should see a Reports tab in the top nav. From the main Reports page, you’ll see a New Report button.

This page also lists a bunch of Salesforce’s preset report types. For example purposes, I’ll start one from scratch, but you could also just run one of those by clicking the name or exploring the options in the dropdown caret on the right. The sidebar also lists previous reports you’ve used, created, or saved, which you can further organize into folders.

Screenshot of how to create a new report in Salesforce

This will bring up a window where you can pick from basic report types. You can also adjust which objects and fields to include, but for now, I’ll keep this Leads report to default presets.

Hit Start Report to… start the report.

Step 2: Adjust your report and run it

Screenshot of how to add presets for your data in the report

When your new report opens up, you’ll see a skeleton with no data. In the left panel, there’s an Outline tab where you can add or delete the fields that will become columns. For a Leads report, by default, this includes things like first name, title, and lead source. To simplify, I’ll X out a few. (If you edit these, you may have to hit Refresh to update the preview.)

You’ll also see a Filters tab next to the Outline tab. Here, you can change parameters for your data, like lead creation date, leads by owner, and lead status. I’ll leave these on the default.

When you’ve got the presets you want, you can use the buttons at the top to save the report for later use, run the report, or both. Hit Run when you’re ready.

Screenshot of a basic tabular report in Salesforce, including fields for first and last name, company/account, email address, and lead owner

If all you want to do is run a basic tabular report, you’re done. You can save it, export it, search through it, or sort it. If you want to add a bit more complexity, move on to step 3.

Step 3: Create a summary report by grouping rows

Click the Edit button to return to the report editing interface. In the Groups field on the left nav, under GROUP ROWS, I’m going to type “Company / Account” to create subgroups by account associated with each lead.

Screenshot of how to create groups in the Salesforce report

You can also group by more than one field, and it doesn’t have to be included in your existing report—things like lead owner, rating, number of employees, location, and email bounce reason.

When you’ve set your groupings, hit Run.

Screenshot of a summary report in Salesforce after adding groups

This is what my particular summary report looks like. You can edit yours further, continue sorting it, add a chart, or incorporate still more complexity in the next step.

Step 4: Create a matrix report by grouping columns

Let’s take things up a notch by grouping both columns and rows. Hit the Edit button to go back to the report editing page. From there, you can type additional grouping fields into the GROUP COLUMNS field below where you added rows to group. I’m going to add “Lead Owner” to mine. Hit Run when you’re ready.