Reporting - How are two objects related in a custom report

Question

I have two objects Object A Object B

I created a custom report type to link Object A and Object B.There are two look up fields that connects Object B to Object A.

I want to ensure my report type is using the correct relationship to navigate from Object A to Object B. Is there a way I can find this?

Thanks AJ

Answer 1

Go to your report type (Setup --> Report Type) and look at the object relationships

1. This will display the related list label. This is mentioned in the Add Child Objects to your Custom Report Type help doc.

NOTE The name of the primary object is derived from the plural label field. The names of any related objects are derived from either the related list label field or the custom field that defines its relationship to the primary object.

You can cross-reference it matches with your expected lookup by going to the custom field itself. If you don't have unique related list labels, you can quickly edit this and it'll reflect in the report type with a refresh (and then change it back).

2. Assuming it's new, you can also see similar info by clicking into Edit Layout within Fields Available for Reports. If you look at the fields from your source object, you should see the lookup being used as the only field not already selected to display (highlighted in gold).

3. As a non-UI option, you can also take a look at the ReportType metadata in VS Code.

sfdx force:source:retrieve -m ReportType

Instead of the related list label, it'll display the relationship name that you can cross-check with the lookup field.

<ReportType xmlns="http://soap.sforce.com/2006/04/metadata">
  <baseObject>test_plural__c</baseObject>
  <category>accounts</category>
  <deployed>true</deployed>
  <description>test</description>
  <join>
    <outerJoin>false</outerJoin>
    <relationship>Accounts__r</relationship> //here you can cross-reference
  </join>
  <label>testing kris</label>
....