- [Christopher] Salesforce dashboards depend entirely

on report data.

And reports are generated using a computer server.

The more complex a report,

the harder that server works,

causing delays in displaying dashboard information.

Here's some tips for improving dashboard response times.

On the left-hand side,

we have a donut chart which shows activities.

And underneath, we have a link to view the report

that feeds this chart.

Now over here on the right-hand side,

we can click Edit to make changes to this report.

Now develop your report to display only necessary fields

and remove unneeded columns.

So let's go ahead and do that.

We really only need to see the groupings

which is the owner of the individual activity.

That's the grouping names,

you see, the names of the people.

And then we need the date in order to get a record count.

The rest of these columns can be removed.

I'll click the Control key,

and then I'll select the columns that I wish to remove,

and they become highlighted.

Now I let go of the Control key,

and I dragged them over to the left

and then they are removed from the report.

Now let's be sure every time we make changes to the report

that we click Save.

Now it's best to use fixed timeframes.

Try using date values,

and we can put in date values.

For example, I can put in a date value here,

all time, that shows everything.

Or I can change this using the date picker,

and I can set a date range.

By setting the date range,

that speeds up the report.

We also have other options, too.

We can use filters here on the top.

This is called the filters pane.

And we can add a filter.

We'll type in the word date.

And then we'll select the date field.

And then we'll use equals as the operator.

And then we can type in something like this week.

It's not case sensitive.

Then we click OK.

That shows the activities for this week,

or we can change it to something like next 30 days.

Then we click OK.

Let's go ahead and remove that filter.

In activity reports,

it's best to use an end date

to exclude future activities that slow things down.

Let me show you a tip to improve performance

when building new reports.

Before we head over to new reports,

let's go ahead and save this report.

And then let's click on the app launcher

on the left-hand side,

and then we'll click on Reports.

Then we'll click New Report.

Now when building a new report,

anytime we start a new report,

we want to use only the object data

that's necessary for the report itself.

So go ahead and click on the plus button here

to expand this.

And if we're just making a report for accounts,

we don't want to use Contacts & Accounts,

because that doubles the number of database objects

that we have to query on this particular report,

so we would just click on Accounts,

and we would click Create.

By using only one object,

the report will be faster.

Now let's head back to the app launcher

and look at our dashboard again.

We'll go ahead and pull up the Company Insights dashboard.

Now here on the right-hand side,

click Refresh to load the latest data into your dashboard.

But clicking Refresh multiple times within 60 seconds

will be ignored.

Info that's not displayed within 10 minutes

means that the report failed.

Try again in a few minutes,

because the server caches data into memory.

Turn up your dashboard's performance with these tips,

and your team will be smiling

with faster dashboard refresh times.

(upbeat music)