Reporting

Reporting is arguably the most important part of the entire information environment since reporting extracts business value from the data entered into your data stores. The Force Platform includes a complete system for creating and running reports.

Force Platform reports are tightly coupled with the Force Platform database and the individual records stored in the objects in that database. Whenever you create a report with the Force Platform reporting system, users have instant access to the detailed records included in the report. In this way, Force Platform reports are ways to create collections of records, as well as aggregate information from these collections.

Force Platform Reporting Concepts

The Force Platform reports system takes a layered approach to creating standard and analytic reports, as shown in the diagram below.

At the base of all reporting are the Force Platform objects. These objects not only contain data in the Force Platform system, but also form an extended mesh of data by means of relationships defined between objects.

The Force Platform reporting system includes a layer between the actual data objects and reports called report types. A report type is the foundation for all reporting activities higher in the stack. The report type provides access to fields in one or more related objects. The Force Platform provides a set of standard report types used in this first section, as well as giving you the opportunity to create your own custom report types. Custom report types can include fields from up to 20 related objects and can specify the fields that are available for report activities, either through user selection or by default.

A user creates standard reports based on report types. Typically, many reports are based on an individual report type since there are many ways to look at the same set of data. A report can be created on the fly or saved for reuse. Reports, by default, have selection criteria specified at runtime, so the same report can be used to get many different sets of data.

Including the Name field of a record in the row of a report allows that field to act as a link to the underlying detail record. This tight integration is a distinct advantage for Force Platform reports. In this way, you can see Force Platform reports as not only an aggregation of data, but also as a kind of switchboard directing you to the core data on which the report is built.

Force Platform reports are, in turn, the building blocks for dashboards, explained later in this chapter, which present a higher level of aggregation for display on home pages. Dashboards can be charts or graphs for a more intuitive presentation of combined information, and dashboards can also drill down into other dashboards or the reports that provide the data for the dashboards. You can also use Analytic Snapshots, explained later in this chapter, to collect data for specific periods or uses, and base your dashboards on those snapshots.

With this understanding of how different components in the Force Platform reporting system interact, you can jump right in to building some reports.