Identify unused reports by creating a ‘report on reports’

The problem:

“Can’t see the wood for the trees”. That’s a favourite saying of mine. Reports in Salesforce are a great example of this; how often have you looked for a specific report but there were so many you couldn’t find it?

I’m sure you’re a lovely Admin and you’ve trained your users to create reports. You’ve also given them the lecture about storing them in the correct place, shown them how to set up folders and sub-folders…

Despite all this, it’s really common for a Salesforce org to become inundated with reports, including many that are no longer relevant or in use. One of the kindest things you can do for your users is to set aside some time every few months to review the situation and take action (DELETE SOME!!).

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The solution:

First you’ll need to create a custom report type.

Setup > Home > Feature Settings > Analytics > Reports & Dashboards > Report Types

(Or just type ‘Report Types’ into the quick find search bar!)

Then select ‘New Custom Report Type’.

Select Reports as the primary object. Name it (I called mine ‘Reports With Or Without Dashboards’), give it a description and choose a category to store it in e.g. Administrative Reports. Choose ‘Deployed’ and click ‘Next’.

On the following page click to relate another object and choose Dashboard Components as the child object. Set the relationship as “A” records may or may not have related “B” records. Select ‘Save’.

Open the App Launcher and select Reports.  Create a new report and choose the report type you just created.

Change the default filters to:

• Show Me = All reports
• Created Date = All Time

Make sure you include columns ‘Report Name’, ‘Last Run’ and perhaps group by ‘Dashboard: Title’.

Click ‘Apply’, then ‘Save & Run’.

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The result:

You’ll now have a full list of your reports and any related dashboards. Use the ‘Last Run’ column to determine when a report was last used.

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Gotchas & hints:

*When you refresh a dashboard it runs each underlying report so the ‘Last Run’ date of a report is also the last refreshed date of a dashboard.

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Useful links:

Salesforce Knowledge Article: Find old or inactive Reports and Dashboards to delete

Admin Hero: Don’t Be a Report Hoarder – Purge Already!

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