We receive many requests about Emailing a Joined Report from the Salesforce Report Builder. Although you cannot Schedule, Email or Subscribe to a Joined Report, you can create a Dashboard, using Charts from the Joined Reports of your choosing. The Dashboard can contain all the most important Report metrics and CAN be Scheduled for Email and Subscribed to. Let’s review how to accomplish this for a Marketing Source Cost Performance Dashboard.
In the native improveit 360 Report Source Cost Performance we provide formula calculations for your Marketing Sources’ Cost per Lead, Cost per Issued Appointment and Cost per Sale, as well as an overall Return on Investment calculation. Our Marketing Director would like to have these metrics emailed on a monthly basis however, this Report is a Joined Report Format. Follow along with the steps in this document to create a Report Chart for each of the metrics that will be part of our Emailed Dashboard.
Open the Source Cost Performance Report and click Customize.
In the Preview pane, click Add Chart:
Select a Chart Type of Horizontal Bar Chart and in the X-Axis choose Cost per Lead (you will be able to select any Summarized Fields Grouped across Report Blocks OR any Formulas within your Report).
Click on the Formatting Tab. Choose to Show Axis Label, Show X-Axis Values and Enable Hover. For Y-Axis Range select Automatic. NOTE: If you were tracking a data point against a static metric you can create a Y-Axis cap. For example, if you are trying to keep your Cost per Lead below $50, I could set the Range from 0-50.
Save your Chart by Clicking Save As on your Report. Save this version of your Report as “Cost per Lead” and save it in the Dashboard Reports folder.
Next click Customize again, and in the Preview pane, click Edit Chart:
This time for the X-Axis choose your Cost per Issue formula:
Click on the Formatting Tab. Choose to Show Axis Label, Show X-Axis Values and Enable Hover and adjust your Chart Name as necessary.
Now, we’ll choose Save As and save another version of this Report with this new Chart. Name this Report “Cost per Issue” and save it in the Dashboard Reports folder:
Continue this process to create a third Horizontal Bar Chart and Report for “Cost per Sale.” Be sure to use ‘Save As’ so you do not overwrite the previous Chart(s) you’ve created. Next we’ll create a Donut style Chart for ROI (Return on Investment).
Click Customize and in the Preview pane, click Edit Chart:
Select the Donut chart and in the Values picklist, select ROI.
Select the Formatting Tab and choose to Show Labels, Combine Small Groups into Others, Show Values, Enable Hover and Show Total in the center of the chart.
Choose Save As, and Save this version of your Report as “ROI Chart” and save it also in the Dashboard Reports folder.
Once we have created all the Charts we’d like to use in our Dashboard, and have them Saved as separate Reports, we can start building our Dashboard.
Go to the Reports Tab and click on New Dashboard:
Drag and Drop a Horizontal Bar Chart into the top row of all three Dashboard columns. Then Drag and Drop a Donut style Chart into the left column below the Horizonal Bar Chart.
Next choose the Data Sources tab and locate the Dashboard Reports folder and each of the Cost per Lead, Cost per Issue and Cost per Sale reports you’ve already created:
Drag and Drop the Cost per Lead Report into the left column Horizontal Bar Chart. Then click the Wrench icon in the upper-right corner of the Dashboard component to Edit the Attributes of that Chart. Check the checkbox to “Use chart as defined in source report.” This setting allows you to display the Chart you’ve already created, within the Dashboard!
Continue to drag and drop your Cost per Issue, Cost per Sale and ROI source reports, be sure to click the Wrench, and click the “Use chart as defined in source report” checkbox for each of the Components in your Dashboard. The Dashboard should look something like this when you’re done:
Click Save, choose a location for this Dashboard. Be sure the Users who would like to receive this Dashboard have access to the Dashboard folder it is saved within.
Next, let’s Schedule the Dashboard to be emailed. Click the arrow next to Refresh and choose “Schedule Refresh”
You can elect to send the Dashboard to yourself (To me) and/or To others. From the picklist you can select to send it to Groups of Users, or individual Users. Choose the Users or Groups from the left column and move them to the right column using the Add button.
NOTE: If you do not have the ability to select Users from the picklist, you may also need to change the Running User of the Dashboard to a non-Admin User. When changing the Running User of the Dashboard, be sure to select “Run as Specified User.”
You may also need to Share the Dashboard folder and Report folder with your Users. And the last troubleshooting step is to check your User Profile; be sure you have “Scheduling Dashboards” setting enabled for your User Profile.