Tracking KPI trends over time with reporting snapshots
Key Takeaway
To keep a KPI's history for months or years, schedule a reporting snapshot, because each run adds new records that stay in your custom object.
A reporting snapshot saves the results of a report as records in a custom object on a schedule, such as every day at 5:00 PM. Each run adds new records, so the custom object builds up a history of point-in-time values. You can report on that history and chart it to spot trends in a KPI, rather than seeing only current values.
How to build a KPI history with a reporting snapshot
A reporting snapshot has three parts: a source report, a target object, and field mappings. You set up those parts, then add a schedule.
- Pick the source report, which supplies the data.
- Pick the target object, which is a custom object with fields that holds the data.
- Create the field mappings, which say which source report field loads into which target object field.
- Schedule the reporting snapshot to run daily, weekly, or monthly.
Priya runs intake for a group of clinics and wants to watch the backlog of referrals waiting for review. She has a custom summary report that totals the waiting referrals by clinic. She sets up a reporting snapshot that runs every Monday morning and loads those totals into a custom object. After the first run, the custom object holds one week of totals. After the tenth run, it holds all ten weeks, so she can chart whether the backlog is growing.