This article will walk you through how to create a report containing projects and the tasks within them. If you need a report containing the resources the tasks are assigned to, please visit the article: Report on Tasks and Assigned Resources.
This article contains instructions on how to build the report in the Salesforce Lightning environment. If you are new to reporting in Salesforce Lightning and would like to learn more, please visit Salesforce Help: Build a Report in Lightning Experience.
Reports are created within the Reports tab.
Helpful hint: Before creating a new report, it is always best practice to search within all reports first to see if the report you need already exists. Simply select All Reports in the menu on the left and enter your keyword in the search box on top of the list.
If the report you need does not exist, then click on New Report to create a new report.
The report type you choose determines which records and fields appear in your report. To create a report containing projects and project tasks, you can use the following report types:
Enter "project task" in the search box and click on the report type you would like to use to select it. Then click on Continue.
You will now see the Salesforce Report builder on screen. Let's familiarize ourselves with the different areas/options we see.
Fields (click to expand if the pane is closed) contains all the fields you can include in your report. You can scroll through the list to look for the field you need or you can also enter the field name in the search box on top of the list.
Outline contains the fields that appear as columns on the report. You may also choose to group rows within this area.
To add a field to the report, simply drag the field from the list of fields on the left to the area under Columns. Alternatively, you may also type in the field name in the search box under Columns and click on it to add.
You will notice that as you add fields to the report, it displays the field as a column in the Preview pane.
To re-order the columns on the report, simply drag and drop the fields according to your desired order under Columns. Alternatively, you may also drag and drop the column headings within the Preview pane.
You may also choose to group rows together to make it easier to read the report. For example, you may want the tasks that belong to same parent task and/or project to be grouped together. You can specify groupings by adding a group under the Groups section.
To group tasks that belong to the same project together, drag the Project Name field under Group Rows. You will notice that the tasks that belong to the same project now appear together in the preview pane.
If you would like to further group tasks together so that they are grouped by both project and parent task, then drag the Parent Task field below the Project Name under Group Rows. This will group the tasks by Project Name first and then by the Parent Task.
If preferred, you may further group rows according to task status or any other field.
Once you've added all the fields you need on the report and have grouped them accordingly, you can then adjust and define Filters.
Filters allow you to pare down your report so that it only shows the data that you want. To view and specify Filters, click on the Filters Tab.
For more information on using Filters within Salesforce Reports, visit Salesforce Help: Filter Your Report
By default, the report only contains projects where you are the project owner. To include all projects on the report, click on "My projects" under Show Me and change it to "All Projects". Then click on Apply.
Next, you would need to specify the date range of projects that need to be included in the report (for example, you may want the report to only include projects that are starting on a specific date range). Click on the existing range. A window will open where you can then select the Date and Range you wish to use and click on Apply.
In this example, we are using the date the Project is created as the date criteria and then choosing "All Time" which means that we are including all projects created regardless when it was created.
If preferred, you may further pare down the data included in the report by adding more filters. For example, if you would like the report to only contain the projects that have a specific status, then you may want to add the project status as a filter (see example below):
Helpful hint: The preview pane only shows you a limited number of records and may not necessarily contain all of the data. To see all data on the report, you would need to run the report by clicking on Run.
Once you are finished configuring the report, you can then save and run the report by clicking on Save & Run at the top right corner.
Enter a report name, a description (optional) and choose a report folder to save it in. Then click on Save.
Helpful hint: Reports saved in Private reports are only accessible to you while reports saved in Public Folders are accessible to all users who have access to reports.
The report will now be saved and will also run.
If you need to go back to the report builder to make further adjustments, click on Edit at the top right corner. Remember to click on save again to save any changes you make to the report.