Setting up a Summary Report the right way to use in Analytic Snapshots

Question

I think that analytic snapshots have some value, but they seem to be difficult to use in a practical way for saving snapshots of summary data. Do you have any ideas of how to do this better than what I have tried so far?

I need to report on the trend of sales values per month over time. This is a great use for Analytic Snapshots.

The Analytic Snapshot should store the Month, the Year, the Value of sales and the quantity of products sold.

I set up my report to show me all sales made in the last month, and then set the analytic snapshot to run on the first day of each month.

My report needs to be grouped so it will only save the totals for each month into the Target Object for the Analytic Snapshot.

However, how do I create a Year or Month field in the summary data in the report? Here are the options: * Group by Month - the summary label shows as "January 2013" - when that gets into the Target Object it is just text and it is not sortable by month. * Group by a formula field giving me the month value or the year value - that would be great except that you have to summarise that data, so even if you choose max or min you get "max 1" for January or "max 2013" for 2013 - these would have to go into a text field in the Target Object.

So, right now, it looks like I am going to have to do a formula field on the Target object to do some detailed string manipulation to create the date (1/1/2013) out of "January 2013" to then show my trend line in my report based on the Target Object.

I really hope I am missing something really simple here, so if you have any ideas, I would be most grateful.

Answer 1

I'd suggest you look at two different references. The first being Chapter 10 of Force.com Platform Fundamentals. The other reference I suggest you look at is the analytics workbook.

You said:

I set up my report to show me all sales made in the last month, and then set the analytic snapshot to run on the first day of each month.

and

However, how do I create a Year or Month field in the summary data in the report? Here are the options: * Group by Month - the summary label shows as "January 2013" - when that gets into the Target Object it is just text and it is not sortable by month. * Group by a formula field giving me the month value or the year value - that would be great except that you have to summarise that data, so even if you choose max or min you get "max 1" for January or "max 2013" for 2013 - these would have to go into a text field in the Target Object.

It sounds as though you may need two different reports or else may need to do either a joined report or matrix report of some kind (you don't say what kind of report you were trying to create). A detailed report on what happened last month is quite different than a rolling summary report that compares the previous month (relative to the current month) to the last 12 months or current calendar year (depending on how you set it up).

It also sounds as though you entered your dates as text rather than allowing the report builder to group the periods (and data) for you by month or somehow "bucketing" them (the latter I'd expect to not be the way to go). Without knowing more about your object and the fields you're trying to report on, I don't think anyone can provide you with more detailed help other than pointing you to the two references I've listed above.

Answer 2

Have you tried using the field Close Month on the opportunity. This is field is only available in standard reports and I believe is for exactly the purpose you're describing.

Use the Close Month field and group by day. That will put in your target object the first day of the month. For example, 01/01/2015, 02/01/2015.