Reporting in Salesforce (a CRM - Customer Relationship Management - tool) is made of tables and, contrary to the report types, which are two - the standard and the custom -, there are four report formats available in Salesforce: tabular, summary, matrix and joined. Differences between report formats are essentially related with the way in which data is presented, in terms of structure and presence (or lack) of groupings.
On the other hand, the main difference between report types is related with the availability of fields and the combination of objects. For example, standard reports are about seventy five, also known as out of the box reports, they are pre-prepared with a set of fields available, and a predefined combination of objects, which could be limited and give less freedom of choice to the users. Custom reports are created by the system administrator according to the special needs of users in what respects to add some fields and/or combine objects in a different way from the one that we have in the standard reports.
Coming back to the four report formats, the tabular is a basic type - similar to the Excel spreadsheets - showing ungrouped data, a kind of list of something. With it, it is possible to have a comprehensive view of all the records at a certain level, but we can’t have a chart. Tabular format allows fast and easy access to data.
In contrast, we have summary reports in which rows are grouped. They are the most used and the user can choose not only the fields to group by and viewing subtotal, but also organize data by the time period more suitable to what is needed. It is possible to create a chart in this report. With summary format, we can analyze data by a specific field and/or by time period, compare data across different record groups and get a quick summary of key metrics.
The third report format is matrix, allowing to group vertically (rows) and horizontally (columns) up to two times each, presenting data in multiple dimensions. They could offer a particular advantage when the goal is to see totals for two categories and/or if we have too much elaborate data to show. This is the most complex.
Finally, we have joined reports, in which we can combine, into one, up to five separate reports (but they remain behaving like separate reports) with a common element between them. They are useful to compare data.
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For more information:
Mastering Salesforce Reports and Dashboards - David Carnes (book published in 2023 by O’Reilly)
“Choose a Report Format in Salesforce Classic”: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=sf.reports_changing_format.htm&type=5
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