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I have the following use case:

Users want to be able to track stalled opportunities. To do this they need to see how long opportunity close dates have been pushed into the future. Now I know that this can be done by enabling trend reporting. However, users want to be able to utilize the summaries of this data (the output report itself) over the course of several years.

So for example: During the month of June, "ABC Opp" is expected to close in August. At some point in July "ABC Opp" the close date is changed (pushed) to September.

Users need to be able to generate a report that shows the increase (or decrease) in the time until the opp is expected to close, and the reduction (or increase) in the opportunity amount. So the report should look something like this:

      Opp Name | Expected Close Date  | Increase in close date  |
June: ABC Opp  | August               | 0                       |
July: ABC Opp  | September            | 30                      |

This report will facilitate short term tracking of the opportunity, but users will need to be able to look back at summaries of this data for least 3 years. For example they will need to be able to compare their opp pipeline to last years pipeline to see of the expected average close dates were similar during June.

I have thought, why not just use reporting snapshots and report on those (over trend reporting). However, from what I understand of reporting snaps shots.. I can generate a report similar to this, but it will require a lot of custom formula fields to generate the increase/decrease in close date fields, which would not be a maintainable long term solution for the user.

Which leads me to the focal point of this question. If I enable trend reporting can I then take reporting snapshots of the output data stored in the trend report? Can I then use that data in future reports to compare monthly averages?

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    note that analytic snapshots have to be based on underlying summary or matrix reports
    – cropredy
    Feb 7, 2018 at 19:10
  • Yes, and once trend reporting is enabled, it creates a new report type that allows me to build matrix reports.
    – Mark Crawford
    Feb 7, 2018 at 20:33

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If I enable trend reporting can I then take reporting snapshots of the output data stored in the trend report? Can I then use that data in future reports to compare monthly averages?

Yes. Assuming you are a System Administrator, Save an Opportunity Trend Report to My Personal Custom Reports folder. In saving this Report, I recommend starting its name with '' (two single quotes) because it will make it easier to find when you are configuring the job below.

Next Create a custom object "OpportunitySnapshot__c". Create as many fields on it as you need to collect data for. Eg StageName (Text - 80), CloseDate (Date), Amount (Currency), etc.

Then visit /0A0/e?retURL=%2Faj%2FlistReportJob.apexp and find/select your Trend Report within the "Source Report" option. If you saved it in "My Personal Custom Reports" folder with a name starting with two single quotes then it should conveniently be the first option in this screen.

Next setup the "Target Object" option to be your OpportunitySnapshot custom object. Next click the "Save & Edit Field Mappings" button and finish setting up the mappings between that part. Based on the frequency and mappings you defined, the system will run the Trend Report and copy its columns into your OpoprtunitySnapShot object as records. You could do this monthly and then you can report/analyze the information that has been captured - including comparing month to month averages

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