You run a report and some of the data you expect does not show. Here are some steps in trouble shooting.
First, always keep in mind: Reports show ONLY data that has been saved in the underlying database.
Next, see if any of these apply:
- Each row must contain a record from each relationship. A row won’t show in the report if it doesn’t have at a record from each relationship. For example, if you are running a report of Contacts whose Opportunities’ Account Billing State does not equal “Ohio”
Contacts > Opportunities > Account Name > Billing State Does not equal Ohio
Any Contact record with no Opportunity would not show in this list unless the “Optional Related Modules:” options that Contain > Opportunities are checked. The reason being: there is no Opportunity to link the Account and the Contact in this definition. One way to either test or even resolve this is to check the “Optional Related Modules:” in the Report Details. These settings allow for that part of the relationship chain to be incomplete. - Calculated Field values must be explicitly saved. It is possible to look at a record and see the value you expect in the Record View but it is not saved to the database. Unless that value has been specifically saved (by clicking the Save button), the Record View may be simply showing, as you edit, what it proposes to save in the database. Reasons for this may be back end database manipulations, non-standard imports, a recently changed calculation formula, etc. You can use Mass Update or Recalculate through the list view to force these values to be saved.
- Drop Down and Dependent Drop Downs. Again, if a Dependent Drop Down value is not saved to the record, this value won’t show or be considered in the report because, as said earlier, the report is based on what is saved in the database. These are particularly difficult to catch because, similar to the calculated field, the Drop Down value will often show the first item in the list if nothing is selected. So if there is not a blank value as the first item, the field may look filled in when it is not. If there is a value you think should be showing in your report and it is not, go to the record in question and try resaving it. Unfortunately, Recalculate and Mass Update do not affect the Drop Down values because that is done either through the user interface or through an import where the Item Name (not the Display Label) is imported directly into the field.
Many times, the best way to investigate a failing report is to duplicate the report and then remove fields and elements form the different sections until it starts to work.
Another method is to duplicate the report but do so as a Rows and Columns type report so that you can be certain that the actual records and field values that you expect to be considered for the report are actually being gathered. This is especially useful when trying to debug Matrix or Summary reports where the numbers don’t add up to what you expect.
Sometimes, it’s simply best to recreate the report from scratch a little at a time to see where what you have so far fails to return what you would expect.