Customised Report Types = Easier Reports

Report Types are the selections that are presented when you create a new report in Salesforce.  They represent a view of the objects that you require to produce a report.  For example you may have a report type “Students with Enrolments in Courses” which may include the student object, the courses object and the enrolment object.  Some Report Types are standard and some are custom – the custom ones you may have created when adding a new object.

Standard Report types cannot be changed but the custom ones can.  By editing these custom Report Types you can:

• Define which fields will be displayed by default when creating a new report (saves time having to drag over all the common fields you want).
• Hide any fields you don’t want users to see (obsolete fields for example).
• Add fields to other related objects via lookup.
• Change the folder structure for the field select menu (on left when selecting fields).
• Hide Report Types. (eg unused Report Types).

Read more about Report Types in this informative article by Brent Downey at AdminHero