Dynamic Reports: The Reports

Chances are, you’ve already created most of the reports that you’ll use as the baseline for your Dynamic Reports – in fact, you’ve probably created several versions of them for different users or teams.

You can use clone of these reports to make your first Dynamic Report.

As you build your reports, put all the other fixed variables in your report filters, except the one(s) you’re going to pass from the Dynamic Report List View.  For example, if you want a sales pipeline report for the next 12 months for your sales reps, put the close Date, Opportunity Stage and other criteria in your report.

For the variable to be passed from the List View, you will add that filter criteria field to your report, but leave the value blank!

Pay close attention to your filter Operator – for Dynamic Reports it will usually be “equals” or “contains”. You would use contains primarily on fields with Editable list views, where your user may enter a value like an Account Name.

Then count the number of custom filter criteria you have below the standard drop-down criteria.  The first Filter will be pv0, the second filter will be pv1, the third will be pv2 and so on.  Your Report Link will pass the field from the Dynamic Reports object to the variable row you specific in the formula.

Report Folders & Permissions

I would recommend creating new read-only report folders for each type of Dynamic Reports you’ll be building, ie:

DR: Sales Rep Reports
DR: Account Reports, etc.

Remember, if your users don’t have access to the Report Folders, they will get an error when they click the links on the Dynamic Reports page.

I recommend setting fairly broad security settings on the Dynamic Reports folders – your security model remains in place, and you can control access to Dynamic Reports through the list views you create.  Alternatively, you could create Dynamic Report folders to align with your Dynamic Report list views.

Next Up… List Views and Security!