What Are Reporting Snapshots In Salesforce?
Reporting Snapshots in Salesforce are a feature that allows you to capture and store historical data from reports, enabling you to track changes and trends over time. This feature is useful for organizations that need to analyze data changes over specific intervals and generate historical reports. Reporting Snapshots work by taking a snapshot of the data in a report and storing it in a custom object at scheduled intervals.
It's important to note that Salesforce reporting snapshots are different from standard reporting in Salesforce, which primarily deals with real-time data. Reporting snapshots are designed specifically for historical data tracking and reporting, making them a valuable tool for businesses that require historical insights to make informed decisions.
Main Differences Between Reporting Snapshots & Historical Trending Reports
Historical trending and reporting snapshots in Salesforce are both methods for analyzing historical data, but they serve different purposes and have distinct features. Here's a comparison of the two:
Reporting Snapshots:
Purpose:
Reporting snapshots in Salesforce are specifically designed for capturing and storing historical data at scheduled intervals. They are used for in-depth historical data analysis and long-term trend tracking.
Data Source:
Reporting snapshots use a dedicated custom object as a target to store historical data. They involve a two-step process: capturing data from a source report and saving it into the custom object.
Granularity:
Reporting snapshots provide a historical point-in-time view of data based on the schedule you define. They are not real-time and provide a snapshot of data at specific intervals.
Use Cases:
Reporting snapshots are ideal for situations where you need to maintain a historical archive of data over time and generate reports or dashboards to analyze historical trends in a structured and controlled manner. Common use cases include tracking sales performance, lead conversion rates, or inventory levels.
Consideration:
Report Snapshots will not have any historical data before you set them up.
Historical Trending Reports:
Purpose:
Historical trending in Salesforce allows you to view historical data trends within standard and custom reports, charts, and dashboards. It provides a way to analyze changes and patterns in your data over time without creating a separate custom object to store historical data.
Data Source:
Historical trending uses standard and custom objects in Salesforce, and it leverages the existing data structure without the need for additional custom objects or snapshots.
Granularity:
Historical trending provides real-time historical data analysis, which means you can see trends up to the current moment.
Use Cases:
It is suitable for situations where you want to quickly analyze historical data within the context of your standard Salesforce reporting tools, such as tracking changes in opportunities, leads, or cases over time.
Consideration:
Historical Trend Reports capture data for the previous three months, plus the current month data and have limited snapshot intervals. However you have the ability to report on retroactive historical data after you set them up.
Reporting Snapshot Use Cases
Salesforce reporting snapshots can be applied to various use cases across different industries and business functions. Here are some common use cases for implementing Salesforce reporting snapshots:
Sales Performance Tracking: Capture snapshots of opportunities, leads, or accounts to track sales performance over time. This can help sales teams identify trends, monitor pipeline changes, and evaluate the effectiveness of sales strategies.
Financial Reporting: Monitor financial data by capturing snapshots of custom objects that store financial records, expenses, or revenue. This enables organizations to generate historical financial reports and analyze financial trends.
Service Level Agreements (SLA) Tracking: For customer support and service teams, tracking SLAs is critical. Reporting snapshots can be used to capture case data, including resolution times and customer satisfaction scores, to ensure SLAs are met consistently.
Lead Conversion Rates: Monitor lead conversion rates by capturing snapshots of leads and opportunities. Analyze how quickly leads are converted into customers and identify bottlenecks in the conversion process.
Employee Performance: Use reporting snapshots to track employee performance metrics, such as sales quotas, customer service scores, or project completion rates. This can be valuable for performance evaluations and incentive programs.
Marketing Campaign Effectiveness: Capture data related to marketing campaigns, including leads generated, conversion rates, and campaign costs. Analyze which campaigns are most effective in driving revenue and customer engagement.
Customer Churn Analysis: Monitor customer retention rates by capturing snapshots of customer data, including subscription renewals, cancellations, and customer satisfaction scores. Identify patterns that may lead to churn and take proactive measures.
These are just a few examples of how Salesforce reporting snapshots can be applied to gain historical insights, track trends, and make data-driven decisions in various aspects of business operations. The flexibility of reporting snapshots makes them a valuable tool for organizations looking to leverage historical data for improved decision-making.
Setting Up Reporting Snapshots
Implementing reporting snapshots is fairly straight forward, but requires several steps to ensure the right data is captured at the proper time. Below are steps to ensure the process is set up properly:
Enable Reporting Snapshots:
First, ensure that Reporting Snapshots are enabled in your Salesforce organization. You can check this by going to Setup > Feature Settings > Analytics > Reporting Snapshots.
Create a Custom Object (Target Object):
You need to create a custom object in Salesforce to store the historical data captured by reporting snapshots. This custom object will serve as the target for your snapshots.
Define Fields on the Custom Object:
Design the custom object by defining fields that correspond to the data you want to capture from the source object(s). These fields should match the data types and structure of the source object(s).
Create a Source Report:
Create a report in Salesforce that includes the data you want to capture in your reporting snapshots. This report will serve as the source for your snapshots. We recommend including record IDs in the report since naming conventions may change over time (for example, if you want to report on pipeline changes over time, your source report will be on Opportunities and you'll want to include the Opportunity ID).
Create a New Reporting Snapshot:
Navigate to Setup > Feature Settings > Analytics > Reporting Snapshots. Click 'New Reporting Snapshot and fill in the required information. You'll need to select the Source Report you just created, as well as the new Custom Object you created.
Create Field Mappings:
Map the fields from the source report to the corresponding fields in the target custom object by selecting the proper source report field from the picklists that match the proper field on the target object.
Set Up Snapshot Schedule:
Once you map the fields between the source report and target object, define a snapshot schedule that specifies how often the snapshots should be taken (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly) and at what time by clicking the 'edit' button within the section "Schedule Reporting Snapshot".
Monitor and Review:
Regularly review the captured snapshot data in the target custom object to ensure that it aligns with your expectations and is being updated according to the schedule.
Create Reports and Dashboards:
After collecting a series of snapshots, you can create reports and dashboards using the historical data stored in the target custom object. These reports will allow you to analyze trends and changes over time.
Adjust as Needed:
As your business requirements change or evolve, you can adjust the reporting snapshots by modifying the source report, fields in the target custom object, or the snapshot schedule to capture new or different data.
Things To Consider
When implementing reporting snapshots in Salesforce, there are several important considerations to keep in mind to ensure a successful setup and effective use of this feature:
Scope: A reporting snapshot will only capture a maximum of 2000 rows of your source report. If your report is returning more rows than that, the rest will get left behind.
Size: Your source report can only contain up to 100 fields from the object(s) you’re pulling from.
Automation: The target object for your reporting snapshot (where your historical data is stored) cannot be the subject of ANY workflow that runs on creation. This means no workflow rules, no process builders, no flows, and no Apex triggers that run on insert.
Snapshot Schedule: Choose an appropriate snapshot schedule based on your business needs. Consider how frequently data changes and how often you need to capture snapshots. Frequent snapshots may require more system resources.
Field Mapping: Ensure that the fields in your source report accurately map to the fields in the target custom object. Data mapping errors can result in incorrect or incomplete historical data capture.
Custom Object Design: Design the custom object that will store the historical data thoughtfully. Include all the necessary fields and data types to capture the data you need. Consider using formula fields to derive additional insights from captured data.
By carefully considering these factors during the implementation of reporting snapshots, you can maximize the benefits of historical data analysis while ensuring data accuracy, security, and compliance with your organization's requirements.