How to Set Up Salesforce Reporting Snapshots‍

Setting up Salesforce Reporting Snapshots allows you to collect and save data from several sources at scheduled intervals. This function is designed to capture and analyze any data over time and find trends. 

Most teams use this reporting feature to track historical changes for specific activities, like sales pipeline progression, support case resolution times, or marketing campaign effectiveness over time. 

But the biggest downside of Reporting Snapshots is its rows limitations. It can only create up to 2000 rows at a time. Plus, your data analysis can become skewed if you don’t create accurate field mappings for custom objects. 

In this article, we’ll discuss the steps for setting up Salesforce Reporting Snapshots and possible bottlenecks in the process. Stay with us till the end to find a better solution. 

3 steps for setting up Salesforce Reporting Snapshots 

You can set up your custom reporting function on Salesforce with these three main steps. Let’s break them down in more detail. 

Step 1: Create a report template and folder 

You have to first create a report template and a folder to store all the relevant data points. Add a unique ID for each record to have a clear reference for tracking changes. You can also create a new folder to save this report in a restricted folder. 

‍

Then, define the properties in Opportunity Snapshot Capture. Think of all possible questions your team might need data for. For example, you can add fields to answer questions like ‘Who owns this account?’ and ‘What stage of the pipeline is this lead in?’

You can also remove any default fields available in the snapshot. Then save this to your report folder.

Step 2: Create Custom Objects for each property

Now, you have to define custom objects for each field added to your snapshot. These objects will capture and track all the changes in data over time. Remember to check the ‘Allow Reports’ box when creating a new object.

‍

‍

On top of this, you have to create Custom Fields to collect the data for each report and design relationships between each field. Here’s an example of how you can set up data type and label for each field:

‍

Step 3: Set up the Reporting Snapshot

The last step is to create a new snapshot. You have to give your snapshot a unique name, add a description, and mention the running user. Then select the Source Report—which we just created—and the Target Object—which is the custom object we set up. 

‍

Then, you can simply schedule this snapshot for a daily, weekly, or monthly frequency. You can choose the specific days when you want to run the snapshot and even set the preferred start and end times.

5 key challenges of using Salesforce’s built-in reporting function

The Salesforce Reporting Snapshots feature isn’t the most user-friendly capability on the platform. Here are five main challenges you might face when using this function:

• Edition-wise limitations: Salesforce’s Starter edition doesn’t bring you all its reporting capabilities since advanced features are reserved for higher-tier editions. So, you’ll be unable to access the Snapshots feature to set up custom reporting. 
• Limited admin access: Larger organizations limit their Salesforce admin controls to a few individuals in upper management. This creates a bottleneck for anyone setting up new custom reports or modifying an existing report. You can’t make any changes without the approval of the account’s main admins.
• Lack of flexibility: Another huge problem due to limited admin permissions is the inability to create custom objects. You can’t set up new custom objects without your account’s admin access. This is an unnecessary dependency to set up customized reporting.
• Complex setup: Setting up Salesforce Report Snapshots is no easy feat. Most teams hire dedicated SF experts to configure their reporting functions. Without advanced knowledge of the tool, you won’t be able to get the best out of its capabilities.
• Data row limits: One of the biggest challenges in Salesforce is the limitation of 2000 rows of data for reporting. Larger teams would need more than 2000 rows to create a useful database and track it over time. This data limit means you have to create and manage multiple snapshots. 

Use Gigasheet: A power-packed, hassle-free alternative to a Reporting Snapshot in Salesforce

If you don’t want to get trapped in the complexities of Salesforce, you can build a more comprehensive reporting setup with Gigasheet. 

Gigasheet is purpose-built for big data analysis with a user-friendly spreadsheet interface. So, you can capture and process data at scale without any painful learning curve. Here’s everything you can do to track Salesforce history with Gigasheet:

Connect Gigasheet with Salesforce

You don’t need admin permissions to connect Gigasheet with your Salesforce account. Use SSO to authenticate your account and provide read-only access. This will help in importing all the data from your reports and custom objects to your Gigasheet account.

Then, you can start tracking any number of fields for your reports. 

One of the biggest advantages of using Gigasheet to schedule your Salesforce data exports is the ease of scaling your reporting function. You can create and capture thousands of fields as frequently as you want, and Gigasheet will keep populating your worksheet. 

Automated report generation and change tracking

Gigasheet automatically creates change summaries to give you a line-by-line analysis of which fields have changed and when. You don’t have to invest any manual efforts in tracking changes over time. 

Plus, you can sort, filter, and group your dataset to navigate it more effectively and extract insights. 

‍

Ditch Salesforce for a more user-friendly reporting tool

Salesforce may have the best-in-class tools to support your operational workflows, but its history-tracking function is complex, limited, and not ideal for everyone. 

Instead, you can build a custom reporting setup with Gigasheet, a big data spreadsheet platform. It’s fast, intuitive, and seamless—you don’t have to spend hours piecing together different parts of the puzzle. Try Gigasheet for free!