Data driven decisions with Salesforce reporting

Today, an organisation’s ability to use  data to drive business decisions can be key to its success and competitive advantage. So, being able to effectively report on and visualise reportable data becomes crucial. Without this, valuable insights remain hidden in raw data across multiple systems, making it difficult for teams to identify trends, spot opportunities, or address issues promptly. What’s more, reporting tools need to be accessible to users in their primary day-to-day systems to easily and effectively support their core tasks and workflows. 

Salesforce^® is ideal to address all these needs. It’s an extremely versatile platform that offers multiple reporting approaches, each with distinct advantages. In this article I will guide you through the reporting options and help you determine which solution might best fit your specific business needs. 

First, let’s take a closer look at why reporting and data visualisation are important and valuable for organizations:

How reporting and data visualisation make a difference

Effective reporting and data visualization for organisations are crucial for several fundamental reasons. Here are some of the most common reporting drivers:

Data without insights have limited value

Organizations collect vast amounts of data. The data by itself doesn’t necessarily tell a story or guide decisions. Reporting transforms the data into meaningful patterns and trends.

Decision-making speed and quality

In today’s fast-paced business environment, leaders need to make quick decisions based on accurate information. Well-designed reports and visualizations enable faster comprehension and more confident decision-making.

Democratization of data

Not everyone in an organization has technical data skills. Visualizations make complex information accessible to stakeholders at all levels, ensuring they can participate in data-driven conversations.

Identifying hidden opportunities

Proper reporting can reveal patterns and correlations that might otherwise remain hidden in disparate spreadsheets or databases. These insights often lead to new business opportunities or efficiency improvements.

Measuring performance against goals

Without effective reporting, it’s difficult to track progress toward business objectives. Reports provide the feedback loop necessary to adjust strategies and tactics.

Introducing the Fibonacci Gym Group (FGG) 

For Salesforce specifically, the reporting capabilities transform CRM data from a simple record-keeping system into a strategic business asset. When customer interactions, sales pipelines, service metrics, and marketing effectiveness are properly visualized, they provide actionable intelligence that directly impacts business outcomes.

In this article, I will cover an approach to reporting strategies in Salesforce as a typical customer relationship management system in the context of a fictional fitness centre “Fibonacci Gym Group” (FGG) entering its second year of operation. 

Let’s start by looking at what kind of data our imaginary company wants to gather and report on, and why:

What are FGG’s reporting drivers?

Our theoretical fitness company, FGG,  needs to report on return on investment (ROI) for their various membership options to meet their members’ different fitness goals. As a start up last year, they made some initial decisions about collecting key metrics for reporting. 

During sign-up, they capture up to three fitness motivators per person – top three reasons those customers have for using their facilities. These include gaining muscle, improving fitness and endurance. FGG follows up on these motivators by sending quarterly surveys to see how they change over time and how successful members feel they have been meeting their goals. FGG also tracks attendances to online and in-person sessions and who converted from group classes to personal training. 

So, we’ve established the data FGG needs to deal with. Now let’s look at how it matches up to the Salesforce capabilities on offer.

Reporting options available to FGG

Our fictional company FGG is already successfully using Sales, Service and Experience Cloud to sell memberships, plan classes and support members through a digital community. They are seeking to maximise the standard reporting features as well as exploring additional Salesforce offerings. 

These standard reporting features include list views as well as reports and dashboards. I’ll now give a brief introduction to each, its features and characteristics and an example using our fictional company, FGG,  for what it could be used for: 

1. List Views

List Views remain one of the most efficient yet underutilized data representation tools in the platform. With an object specific focus, List Views provide a streamlined tabular view for a single object, making them ideal for teams that need to concentrate on one data set at a time. The FGG Sales Team’s experience demonstrates this perfectly. The FGG Sales Team manages prospective member requests through the Lead object after capturing information via a Web-to-Lead form on their website. 

Dynamic Lead Intelligence View: This specialized view displays engagement metrics that allow the team to quickly identify which prospects are actively engaging with FGG and which may require follow-up. This real-time visibility enables more strategic prioritization of sales efforts.

Traditional List Views: Team members can switch to List Views filtered by their respective areas (casual, regular, or premium membership), providing each salesperson with a focused view of their specific segment.Key benefits: List Views have a low configuration overhead empowering trained business users to adjust their data views without IT intervention. They also generally consume fewer system resources than complex reports or dashboards. Apart from the Lead intelligence View, List Views also support inline editing, mass actions, and quick filtering, transforming them from passive data displays into interactive work tools.

2. Seller Home

FGG Sales Team also greatly value the Seller Home which is enabled for their home page. When they log in to Salesforce they have an overview of their opportunities, accounts, leads, and members (contacts). The Seller Home also provides their diary for the day and allows them to track their goals and progress, recent records, and Einstein suggestions.

3. Standard Salesforce reports and dashboards

The FGG membership team needs to track membership retention, new sign-ups and cancellations by location.They’ve opted for Salesforce reports and Dashboards as their data resides entirely within Salesforce. They are typically looking at this data on a monthly basis and have straightforward questions to ask with low to moderate complexity. The reports and dashboards are quick to build and deploy. Filtering the information to only show exactly what they need keeps the reports responsive, relevant and able to scale to different fitness centres as they grow. 

4. Lightning Web Components (LWC) Reports: external users

FGG often has contractors who offer seasonal classes or arrange to run their personal training sessions from the fitness space. They have been granted external licenses (Customer Community Plus), and although they could create and edit reports, FGG is mindful that a customized user interface will allow their contractors to track their client progress, session bookings, and performance metrics (some of which is held off platform in an off-platform archive).   

The LWC hosted on an authenticated Experience Site page has been configured to give them the ability to filter and interact with their specific data. This includes the externally held data in the archival system which is virtualised on demand. This gives greater functionality than the standard reports and dashboards and saves on some training overheads.   

The power of Lightning Web Components for reporting at FGG extends far beyond what standard Salesforce reports can offer in this context. By implementing a custom virtual data layer through an Apex controller, the solution elegantly bridges the gap between Salesforce data and the external archival system without requiring full data replication. This approach significantly reduces data storage costs while maintaining real-time access to critical contractor information. It can also ensure that the appropriate security is applied to the underlying data, applying the principle of least privilege.

5. Business intelligence tools: FGG’s internal sales ROI

Typically this would be CRM Analytics or Tableau, however Salesforce can integrate with other business intelligence tools such as PowerBI. FGG is entering their second year and looking for rapid expansion. The internal sales team have been happy with standard Salesforce reports for basic metrics to date. However, they’ve worked hard and memberships are rapidly increasing. Management are confident that they will be able to set up two to five more locations in the current year. 

The internal sales team wants to be ahead of the game and use CRM Analytics to handle the expected volume and calculation complexity. This will assist managers to make data-driven decisions about class scheduling, instructor allocation, and membership promotions. It will also enable powerful data processing capabilities, predictive analytics and advanced visualisation of large data sets from Salesforce data (cross-object) and external sources. 

The addition of CRM Analytics to FGG’s reporting solutions will help them answer critical questions:

• Which membership types have the highest retention rates?
• What classes drive the most new sign-ups?
• How do seasonal factors affect attendance patterns and motivations?

FGG’s community impact reporting

FGG prides itself on positive community building and wants to leverage local authority funding. Impact data needs to be available publicly to encourage investment, funding and new members. This data is carefully curated and provides aggregates only. They considered embedding a CRM Analytics dashboard, however their needs for this report are simple. They’ve hired a Salesforce Partner to help them create a LWC to allow visitors to an unauthenticated page on their digital experience. The component will include call to action drivers to encourage  engagement.

Enabling data-driven decision making

For internal teams, effective Salesforce reporting transforms raw data into actionable insights that drive better business decisions. Just as a fitness professional tracks member progress, attendance patterns, and class popularity, your Salesforce administrators and business users can leverage reporting to:

• Monitor key performance indicators in real-time dashboards
• Identify trends and patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed
• Allocate resources more effectively based on accurate data
• Predict future outcomes using historical analysis
• Make faster decisions with confidence

The right reporting approach removes guesswork from the equation, allowing teams to respond to changing business conditions with agility and precision.

Holistic reporting strategy

The most effective Salesforce reporting implementations don’t rely on a single approach but strategically deploy multiple solutions based on specific use cases and audience needs. By understanding the strengths and limitations of each option, organizations can develop a comprehensive reporting ecosystem that delivers actionable insights to drive business success.

Rather than viewing these options as competing solutions, consider them complementary tools in your reporting toolkit.Just as the fitness and leisure industry evolved from basic weight rooms to sophisticated training centers with diverse offerings, your Salesforce reporting strategy should evolve to meet the growing analytical demands of your organization. Whether monitoring KPIs through standard dashboards, delivering complex visualizations through Tableau, or empowering external users with LWC reports, the right combination of tools transforms data into the strategic asset that fuels informed decision-making.

By carefully matching reporting approaches to business requirements, you create a data-driven culture where insights flow seamlessly to those who need them most – enabling faster, more confident decisions that drive competitive advantage in today’s rapidly changing business landscape.

Your Next Steps Toward Smarter Reporting and Analytics

Thank you for reading. I hope this article inspires you to find the best reporting approach for your needs, and also understand the wealth of possibilities Salesforce technology offers for data analytics. If you want to ensure your organization makes the most of the tools and methods I’ve explored here, to streamline and transform reporting and make the most data-driven decisions possible, we will be glad to help. VRP Consulting is an award-winning Salesforce partner and our consulting teams can help you fully realise your organizational needs..

VRP Consulting, as a Tableau Partner, can quickly get you up and running, providing best practice data configurations and critical insights to give you a competitive advantage, regardless of the current state or complexity of your data sources. Whether you have Salesforce data, on-site databases, or multiple data sources, we can optimize your business model with proactive data insights.

Even if your organization has not yet implemented the Salesforce platform, specialist knowledge is crucial for installing and maximizing the benefits of Salesforce analytics tools for your business. VRP Consulting can provide expert advice and support in this area.

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About the Author

Rebecca Heald

Enterprise Architect

As Regional Head of Technical Architecture, Rebecca Heald is responsible for overseeing VRP’s team of Technical Architects across the UK, US, and EMEA. Rebecca drives the strategic direction of the Technical Architecture practice, ensuring high-quality delivery for clients and supporting the growth of the team.