An Improved Reports/Dashboards Tab?

Every time I teach a new user about Salesforce I cringe when I get to the point of showing them the Reports tab. On the one hand reports and dashboards are one of Salesforce's great strengths. Free and out of the box you get instant ability to pull out the data in your system, slice, dice, and visually display, and more. (Unless you're trying to report on the NPC data model. But that's a different issue.) Unlike lots of other systems, Salesforce is not limited to a handful of canned reports and at the mercy of your platform provider to build new or custom reports. That's super powerful!

But after giving a tour of record pages, relationships, and data entry, when I direct the user to click on the Reports tab I suddenly have a different user interface. Unlike all the other object tabs, where I can show users how to change the default list view that loads and pin their favorite, Reports always loads to Recently Viewed. Plus the navigation is via links on the left side. And there are folders to navigate... Not that any of this is particularly difficult, of course. I suspect everyone reading this blog is so used to it at this point that you barely notice. But inconsistency doesn't do anyone any favors when learning the platform.

And can I just state for the record how annoying it is that there is no New button under the Reports tab carat, like there is for all object tabs? Having to click to the reports tab before clicking New Report has to be one of the biggest time wastes in all of Salesforce.

Several releases ago Salesforce came out with Analytics Home. As is the company's pattern, they made a small publicity push at the time but it's basically fallen off the radar. In some recent conversations I was reminded of the page and wondered if there was cause to give it another look?

Still Inconsistent

The first thing you notice if you go to the Analytics tab is that, if anything, it's more different than the Reports tab is, not less!

I assume part of the reason for this is due to this page combining the Reports tab and the Dashboard tab, hence the Create button, instead of a New button.

That, at least, isn't such a big deal, so I can cut Salesforce some slack. (But honestly, wouldn't three buttons have been better?)

Other than that, my first impression is that Analytics is not that dissimilar from the Reports tab or the Dashboards tab. Navigation is on the left, there are no customizable list views, and it basically defaults to Recently Viewed. There are some large cards that take a chunk of screen real estate. (It's debatable whether the tradeoff there saves time or clicks.)

So far, this feels like "a distinction without a difference," as one of my high school teachers used to say.

• Slightly different interface compared to Reports (and Dashboards).

• "Two tabs for the price of one," I suppose.

• Still inconsistent with the rest of Salesforce.

At best, I'd say it's debatable whether this is an upgrade.

And those of you who know me should already anticipate two things I'm really disappointed by:

1. There is still no option to start a new report from the tab header.

2. It actually takes one more click to make a new report than it did before. (Analytics tab. Then then Create. Then New Report.)

Now the Bad News

But now let's get into the things you only notice if you try to use this "feature."

Items Don't Load to URLs

The section title kinda' says it all. When you go to a report from the Analytics tab you somehow remain at the same URL!

https://yourcustomdomain.lightning.force.com/lightning/page/analytics

Most of the time, this probably doesn't matter. But as soon as you want to grab a link to the report so you can send it to someone, you're out of luck.

OK, not entirely out of luck. There is a new Share button if you've loaded a report from here.

With that button (and one more click) you can copy the URL for this report. But that's yet another difference from the normal interface where we've taught our users to grab the URL for sharing.

By the way: The Share button doesn't give the regular report URL—it's about tthree times as long. Clicking on that special link ensures that you load the report as though you'd come from Analytics Home.

This feels like a step backwards.

No Chatter!

Last post I wrote about using Chatter on Reports and Dashboards. Look at that last screenshot. It has no Collaborate button!

As I noted in that prior post, I know Chatter's days are numbered, eventually to be replaced by Slack. But are we supposed to conclude that if you get there from the Analytics tab for some reason collaborating on reports and dashboards isn't a thing? Surely it is. So how are you supposed to give context for which report or dashboard you’re working on? And why wouldn't we want to collaborate right on the report itself?

"Navigation breadcrumbs"

The official Help docs on Analytics Home excitedly point out that, "Navigation breadcrumbs are activated when you open a report or dashboard." That sounds nice.

But those breadcrumbs just give you a link back to Analytics Home:

Home > Lightning Report

It doesn't list the folder.

Doesn't give the report's name.

Presumably the Analytics tab is part of your app navigation in the first place!

Honestly, if you can't tell whether you're in a report, a folder, or a dashboard at a glance, the navigation breadcrumbs aren't going to help orient you that much.

Oh Well

I don't know what else to say. I see no point in the new Analytics Home.