Dashboard date filters: the best feature you’re not using yet…

Whenever I get a request for a new dashboard I try to use dashboard filters where possible instead of over-filtering the underlying reports. The reason? It’s easier to re-use or clone the reports and dashboard in future.

I love dashboard filters and very often find myself filtering on picklists like Opportunity Stage or Account Type. Something that typically slips my mind is that we can also use dates as a filter. There are so many uses for this, I’m not sure why it doesn’t come up more often! For example, a dashboard on data quality might be useful filtered on Created Date equals this month or last month. An opportunity dashboard would be useful filtered on Close Date equals Q1 or Q2 and so on.

Let’s walk through a couple of ways you too can filter your dashboards based on date values. First, locate a dashboard and click ‘Edit’. Next click ‘+ Filter’.

Relative dates:

1. Select your date field from the list of available fields and click ‘Add Filter Value’
2. Check your operator – do you want ‘Equals’, ‘Contains’ etc?
3. Change the date type from ‘Calendar’ to ‘Relative’
4. Type your relative date e.g. THIS MONTH, THIS YEAR, TODAY
5. Click ‘Apply’

6. You can add additional relative date filters by clicking ‘Add Filter Value’
7. Click ‘Add’ once all values have been added

Calendar date:

1. Select your date field from the list of available fields and click ‘Add Filter Value’
2. Check your operator; if you want a single date choose ‘Equals’ or ‘Not Equals’ or perhaps you want to see all records created after a certain date, in this case choose ‘Greater Than’
3. Leave the date type as ‘Calendar’
4. Choose a date
5. You can rename the display text for your filter if required

6. If using ‘Equals’ or ‘Not Equals’, you will get the option to select multiple dates

7. Click ‘Apply’
8. You can add additional calendar date filters by clicking ‘Add Filter Value’
9. Click ‘Add’ once all values have been added

Between calendar dates:

Special mention goes to the ‘between’ operator! This clever tool allows you to filter on records between 2 dates. It’s important to be aware that the between filter will include any records that match your start date but will not include any records that match your end date. End date “includes results up to, but not through, the end date”. In my example below I want to be able to filter on records created during a working week (e.g. Mon-Fri). I use Monday as my start date and Saturday as my end date; this ensures I see all records that match between Monday and Friday.

1. Select your date field from the list of available fields and click ‘Add Filter Value’
2. Change the operator to ‘between’
3. Leave the date type as ‘Calendar’
4. Choose a ‘Start Date’ and an ‘End Date’
5. You can rename the display text for your filter if required
6. Click ‘Apply’

7. You can add additional calendar date filters by clicking ‘Add Filter Value’
8. Click ‘Add’ once all values have been added

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Hints & gotchas:

*You can use relative dates e.g. THIS WEEK!

*You can have up to 3 filters per dashboard and each filter can have up to 50 filter values.

*Filters are not applied when you schedule or email a dashboard.

*You can’t use custom summary formulas as dashboard filters.

*You can’t use a bucket field as a dashboard filter.

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Useful resources:

Salesforce Help: Filter a Dashboard

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Thanks to Andy Corbett for providing the original inspiration for this blog post!