Join us to learn how to build formulas that have no place on the page layout but will make you a reporting superstar.

1. 6 Reporting Formulas
That Will Delight Your Users
April 5, 2017

2. Today’s Speakers
Steve Molis
Salesforce Admin
@SteveMoForce
Geoff Flynn
Principal Consultant
Slalom
@GeoffreyFlynn2
Michael Gerholdt
Director, Admin Evangelism
Salesforce
@mikegerholdt

3. Forward-Looking Statements
​ Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995:
​ This presentation may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. If any such uncertainties materialize or
if any of the assumptions proves incorrect, the results of salesforce.com, inc. could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the
forward-looking statements we make. All statements other than statements of historical fact could be deemed forward-looking, including any
projections of product or service availability, subscriber growth, earnings, revenues, or other financial items and any statements regarding strategies
or plans of management for future operations, statements of belief, any statements concerning new, planned, or upgraded services or technology
developments and customer contracts or use of our services.
​ The risks and uncertainties referred to above include – but are not limited to – risks associated with developing and delivering new functionality for
our service, new products and services, our new business model, our past operating losses, possible fluctuations in our operating results and rate of
growth, interruptions or delays in our Web hosting, breach of our security measures, the outcome of any litigation, risks associated with completed
and any possible mergers and acquisitions, the immature market in which we operate, our relatively limited operating history, our ability to expand,
retain, and motivate our employees and manage our growth, new releases of our service and successful customer deployment, our limited history
reselling non-salesforce.com products, and utilization and selling to larger enterprise customers. Further information on potential factors that could
affect the financial results of salesforce.com, inc. is included in our annual report on Form 10-K for the most recent fiscal year and in our quarterly
report on Form 10-Q for the most recent fiscal quarter. These documents and others containing important disclosures are available on the SEC
Filings section of the Investor Information section of our Web site.
​ Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other presentations, press releases or public statements are not currently available and may
not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase our services should make the purchase decisions based upon features that are currently
available. Salesforce.com, inc. assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.

4. Get Social with Us!
@SalesforceAdmns
#AwesomeAdmin
Salesforce Admins
The video will be posted to YouTube
& the webinar recap page
(same URL as registration).
This webinar is being recorded!

5. Join the Admin Webinar Group for Q&A!
​ Ask your questions in the group!
• We have team members on hand to answer
questions in the webinar group.
Stick around for live Q&A at the end!
• Speakers will tackle more questions at the end,
time-allowing
bit.ly/AdminWebinarGroup

6. Today’s Agenda
• Getting Started With Formulas
• The 6 Formulas
• Resources
• Q&A

7. Getting Started
With Formulas

8. 3 Handy Hints About Formulas
1. Formula fields allow you to rethink your reporting requests
2. Formula fields aren’t just for page layouts
3. Formula fields work the same in both Lightning Experience and
Classic

9. The Formula Editor: Where the Magic Happens
“Nobody has ever gotten
rabies by clicking these.
They will not bite you!!!”
- Steve Mo
It’s
Magic!

10. Activity Type
FORMULA 1

11. The Problem
We need to know which objects have related activities to
ensure our reps are focusing on the right areas.
However…
the standard activity reporting won’t allow you to group by the
object the activities are logged against. We need a
solution!

12. Formula 1: Activity Type
CASE(
LEFT(WhatId, 3),
"001", "Account",
"500", "Case",
"006", "Opportunity",
"a00", "Favourite Movies",
"a02", "Actors",
"Other"
)
​ Benefits:
1. Easier to know what Activities are related to
2. Activity reporting at a glance
3. Knowing where effort is being focused
This formula represents the
Object of the Related To
Record

13. Formula 1: Activity Type

14. FORMULA 2
Amount by
Month or Quarter

15. The Problem
Sometimes you want to group by the same date twice in the same
report, or you want to group by Month and then by Year, or you
want to show the last 3 months individually, but anything before
that at the quarterly level only.
However…
the standard report builder doesn’t necessarily allow that level of
flexibility, especially when it comes to grouping by dates.
We need a
solution!

16. Formula 2: Amount by Month or Quarter
February Amount:
IF(
MONTH(CloseDate) = 2,
Amount,
0
)
Q4 Amount
IF(
MONTH(CloseDate) >= 10,
Amount,
0
)
​ Benefits:
1. Custom timeframes allow your users
to avoid complex filters
2. Show multiple timeframes at different
aggregate values
3. Flexibility of a summary report with
the look of a matrix report
This formula gives you the
ability to pull “XX amount”
on demand

17. Formula 2: Amount by Month or Quarter

18. FORMULA 3
The “Ultimate”
Parent Account

19. The Problem
We need to display the Opportunity Sales Pipeline of an entire
Corporation that spans multiple Parent and Subsidiary Accounts
across several tiers of Parent and Subsidiary Accounts.
However…
the Standard Parent Account Field only goes up 1 Level and returns
the name of the Account 1 Level above that Account. It also
displays a blank value if there is no Parent of that Account.
We need a
solution!

20. Current Opportunity Pipeline Report
What should
we do?

21. The Solution
Create a custom Formula Field on the
Account Object that will return the name of
the Top Parent Account in the Account
Hierarchy, no matter where in the Account
Hierarchy the current Account is located
(even if there is no Account Hierarchy).

22. Formula 3: The ‘Ultimate’ Parent Account
Create a custom Cross-Object
Formula(Text) field to return the
Account Name from the
Parent.Account.

23. Formula 3: The ‘Ultimate’ Parent Account
Summarize information by the
Top “Ultimate” Parent Account
in a multi-level Account

24. Formula 3: The ‘Ultimate’ Parent Account
BLANKVALUE(Parent.Parent.Parent.Parent.Parent.Name,
BLANKVALUE(Parent.Parent.Parent.Parent.Name,
BLANKVALUE(Parent.Parent.Parent.Name,
BLANKVALUE(Parent.Parent.Name,
BLANKVALUE(Parent.Name,
Name)))))
Formula:
So smart!

25. Formula 3: The ‘Ultimate’ Parent Account

26. Formula 3: The ‘Ultimate’ Parent Account

27. FORMULAS 4 & 5
Count of Open &
Lost Opportunities

28. The Problem
We need to display the number of Open Opportunities in the
Sales Pipeline to be able to quantify the “health” of our Sales
Pipeline and ensure that we have enough new Opportunities
coming in. We also need to quantify the number of Lost
Opportunities so that we can measure customer attrition and
identify areas that need attention and corrective measures.
However…
the Opportunity Object has fields that count whether an Opportunity
is Closed or Won, but not Open and Lost.
We need a
solution!

29. Current Closed/Won Opportunities Report

30. The Solution
The Opportunity Stage field has a setting called
“Type”. It sets 2 hidden Checkbox fields called
IsClosed and IsWon.
It sets them to either TRUE or FALSE. And
using a couple of Formula (Checkbox) fields we
can solve our problem.

31. Formulas 4&5: Count of Open and Lost Opportunities

32. Formulas 4&5: Count of Open and Lost Opportunities
IsClosed = FALSE
alternately
NOT( IsClosed )
Create a custom field
Datatype: Formula
Return Type: Checkbox
Formula:
Create a custom field
Datatype: Formula
Return Type: Checkbox
Formula:
AND( IsClosed = TRUE,
IsWon = FALSE)
alternately
AND( IsClosed,
NOT( IsWon ) )
Using some simple Formula Checkbox
fields we can turn IsClosed into “IsOpen”
and IsWon into “IsLost”

33. Formulas 4&5: Count of Open and Lost Opportunities

34. Formulas 4&5: Count of Open and Lost Opportunities
Wikid Smaht!

35. FORMULA 6
A Different Kind
of Bucket Field

36. What are Buckets?
​ Buckets help you sort, organize and understand large
amounts of data in Salesforce quickly and easily.
​ You can create 3 types of buckets, grouping your data
without having to create custom formulas:
1. Numeric
2. Picklist
3. Text
So cool!

37. The Problem
We need to create a formula field to use as a bucket which gives
us more flexibility than a bucket field on a report, or we will find
ourselves continually using the same bucket field across many
reports.
However…
the standard report bucket field needs to be created
individually for each report.
We need a
solution!

38. Formula 6: A Different Kind of Bucket Field
IF(
Amount > 500000,
“Large Deal”,
IF(
Amount > 250000,
“Standard Deal”,
“Small Potatoes”
)
)
Benefits:
1. Easier to build
2. Easier to maintain across reports
3. Easier to set up for users to leverage as a
regular field value in their own reports
This formula is a way to create a
report ‘bucket’ that can be reused
across multiple reports and only
adjusted once.

39. Formula 6: A Different Kind of Bucket Field

40. Resources

41. Additional Resources
Trailhead modules for guided learning: Formulas &
Validations, Advanced Formulas, Reports & Dashboards
trailhead.salesforce.com
The Success Community
success.salesforce.com
Formula Operators and Functions
bit.ly/formulaoperatorsandfunctions

42. Q&A
bit.ly/AdminWebinarGroup
Survey
bit.ly/awsurvey-6formulas
Slides
bit.ly/6reportingformulas
Wrapping Up