Salesforce Report And Dashboard Interview Questions & Answers

Question 1. What Is Report?

Answer :

To summarize the information of an object we use reports.

Question 2. What Are Different Types Of Reports?

Answer :

Tabular report:This is the most basic report. It displays just the row of records in a table like format with grand total. Tabular reports cannot be used for generating dashboards.

Summary report:This is the most commonly type of report. It allows grouping of rows of data. It supports sorting and displaying subtotals. For example in a recruiting app, a summary report could be used to display open positions classified by department name.

Matrix report :This is the most complex report format. Matrix report summarize information in a grid format. Matrix reports allows records to be grouped by both columns and rows.

Joined Reports: Joined reports let you create multiple report blocks that provide different views of your data. Each block acts like a “sub-report,” with its own fields, columns, sorting, and filtering. A joined report can even contain data from different report types.

Question 3. What All Reports Can Be Used To Generate Dashboards?

Answer :

Summary and Matrix reports

Question 4. What All Things Are Not Supported In Joined Reports?

Answer :

The following items aren’t supported in joined reports, and aren’t converted:

• Bucket fields
• Cross filters
• The Rows to Display filter

Question 5. What Are Bucket Fields?

Answer :

Bucketing lets you quickly categorize report records without creating a formula or a custom field. For example, create a bucket field named Size based on the # Employees field. Then, create buckets that group records into “Large,” “Medium,” or “Small” ranges that you define. Bucket fields can be used like any other field to sort, filter, and group your report.

You can add up to five bucket fields per report, each with up to 20 buckets. Only numeric, picklist and text field can be used for bucketing. Other data types are not supported.

Question 6. Can We Create A Formula Type In Reports?

Answer :

Yes.

Formula are not available in tabular reports but available for other report types.

Formula can be only in number, currency and percent format.

Question 7. What Is A Custom Report Type?

Answer :

Custom report types allow you to build a framework in the report wizard, from which users can create and customize reports. You build custom report types off of the relationships (master-detail and lookup) between objects so that you can:

• Choose which standard and custom objects to display to users creating and customizing reports.
• Define the relationships between objects displayed to users creating and customizing reports.
• Select which objects' fields can be used as columns in reports.
• Note that the visibility of custom report types in the report wizard is controlled by users' access to the objects in the report type.
• You may define which related records from other objects are returned in report results by choosing a relationship to another object.
• You can associate up to four objects to a custom report type.

Question 8. What Is Difference Between Custom Report Types And Standard Report Types?

Answer :

Standard report types are report types which salesforce create itself when we create objects and relationship between them.

Custom report types allow admin to specify what all fields will be available to user while creating a report. Also its provide functionality to associate up to 4 objects.

Question 9. How Access To Reports And Dashboard Is Controlled In Salesforce?

Answer :

Access to reports and dashboards are controlled by folder in which they are stored. If user has access to folder then they can run reports present in that folder.

In reports data displayed is as per running user's security access. Reports can be run on both standard and custom objects.

Reports data is always generated in real time. When a report is saved, reports configuration parameters are stored but the generated data is not stored.

Question 10. What Is Analytical Snapshot?

Answer :

Analytical snapshot allows reports run at scheduled time to be stored as objects. Analytical snapshots are used to perform trend analysis. As an example if we want to view how monthly sales are growing, fields in a report with sales figure can be stored in a custom object every month using Analytical snapshot. Data in this custom object can then be used to perform trend analysis.

Analytical snapshot are available from the Data Management menu option. Source report in Analytical snapshot can be of the type Tabular or Summary.

Setup Analytical reports require a four step process:

• Select source report
• Select custom object
• Map source report fields to custom object fields
• Schedule the frequency for taking the snapshots

Question 11. What Is Dashboard?

Answer :

Dashboards are graphical representation of reports. Dashboards can be generated for summary or matrix reports (and not for tabular reports). Dashboards display data as per last time report was run.

A dashboard can have upto 20 components.

Question 12. Is It Possible That Data You See On Dashboard And Data You See On Report After Drilling Down The Report On Dashboard Are Different?

Answer :

Yes.

When a user views the drill-down report for a dashboard component, running user's access permissions determine what data is displayed on the drill down report. Hence it is possible that data in the drill down report does not match the cumulative dashboard data.

Remember report runs based on current or logged in user and display real time data but dashboard store the information from reports when you refresh dashboard. In order to see real time data on dashboard, refresh the dashboard.

Also dashboard can run based on logged in user or specified user but reports always runs based on logged in user.

Question 13. What Are Different Chart Types Available For Dashboards?

Answer :

• Vertical column
• Horizontal bar
• Line
• Donut
• Funnel
• Pie

Funnel is used to show proportion of values against each other.

Pie is used to demonstrate proportion of single value against total.

Donut is used to demonstrate proportion of single value against total and also show the total value.

Question 14. What Are Limitations Of Salesforce Reports?

Answer :

• Support for trend analysis in Salesforce is fairly limited.
• User Interface of Salesforce reports and dashboards is fixed. Salesforce does not support pixel perfect report.
• Salesforce reports do not support importing data from other sources
• When displaying objects and their children, Salesforce does not support reporting on objects that do not have any children.
• If an object has two different related lists, then Salesforce reporting does not support displaying both these related lists together.

Question 15. Explain Dynamic Dashboard?

Answer :

Dynamic dashboards in Salesforce displays set of metrics that we want across all levels of your organization.

Dynamic Dashboards in salesforce are Created to provide security settings for the dashboards in salesforce.com. We may have a requirement in an organization to “view all data” by every user in an organization according to their access we have to select Run as Logged-in User. There are two setting option in Dashboards.

They are:

1. Run as specified User.
2. Run as Logged-in User.

Question 16. Can We Mass Delete Reports Using Apex (anonymous Apex)?

Answer :

Salesforce has not exposed any API for Reports. So best way is :

• Move all reports needs to delete in new folder.
• Inform everyone that reports will be deleted after some time may be 30 days.
• Import your reports folder in Eclipse including all reports to be deleted and then delete the the reports folder in eclipse. It will delete all the reports at once.

Question 17. How Many Records We Can Display On Page For A Report?

Answer :

We can display up to 2000 records on a page. If more records are there to display we cannot see those through user interface. If you export the records to a excel sheet then you can export all records.