Managing Report Subscriptions in Salesforce

by Mike Walsh | Sep 18, 2021 | Salesforce Tips

Disorganized data can dismantle even the most organized strategy. This is why it’s essential to make sure that your reports in Salesforce are current and get to the people who need them. Reports help your team stay on task, find the information they need, and monitor the health of their workflow. 

In this article, we’ll explain:

• How Salesforce Reports work and what they do
• How to subscribe yourself and others to reports
• Managing report schedules
• Setting up notifications

How Do Salesforce Reports Work?

You can think of a report as a list of information with all the information you’ve asked Salesforce to provide. For example, this could be a list of prospects that your sales team will call, accounts in default, or open support cases that need follow-up. Salesforce looks for the criteria you select and presents users with a list of that data. 

In Salesforce, this information will show up grouped into rows and columns. You can then organize this info by characteristics like priority level or dollar amount, filter it only to see what’s relevant, or create visual representations of the data.

The information in these reports is stored in folders, which can be private or available to whoever you like. You can allow users in specific groups to see them and those with particular roles, license types, or permissions. If you want, you can also hide or share your reports with people inside and outside your organization. This means that anyone who needs to access the data will be able to get it.

Why Should You Use Salesforce Reports?

Birds-eye view of data
Reports can tell you information at a glance to quickly take action. Fast, accurate responses can give you a leg up on your competition. For example, time required to prepare for a meeting could be reduced by automatically mailing reports out to your team. Or, you could respond to support tickets faster by having a detailed list right in front of you. 

If you have a weekly meeting with your sales team, everybody needs to see the numbers for that week’s sales. It wouldn’t make sense to mail the report to each person individually, so instead, you can set up report subscriptions, so everyone has it sent to them.

While reports provide the insight, subscriptions make sure that those who need them have them. People are liable to error. We take sick days, we go on vacations, and we occasionally make mistakes. Setting up reports to automatically go out takes one more task off your team’s plate while giving more intelligent updates on what needs action. 

Before Subscribing to Reports, Check Your Permissions on Salesforce.

You will need different permissions for report subscriptions depending on who you’re trying to add and how you intend to do it.

• If you’re trying to subscribe yourself to a report, the only permission you need is to Subscribe to Reports. 
• If you’re trying to subscribe other people to reports, you will need permission to Subscribe to Reports and Add Recipients. 
• Or, if you’re trying to subscribe groups and roles to reports, you will need permission to Subscribe to Reports and to Send to Groups and Roles. 
• Finally, if you want to change who runs the report, you will need permission to Subscribe to Reports and Set Running User. 

How to Subscribe Yourself to Salesforce Reports

Now that you know what permissions you need, you can subscribe to whichever reports you like. To do this in Salesforce Classic, follow these steps.

1. Navigate to the Reports folder and click on All Folders on the left-hand side. 
2. Then, click the pull-down menu on the right and navigate to Items I’m Subscribed To.
3. On this page, you can view, edit, and delete your current subscriptions to reports.

In Salesforce Lightning, here’s how to do it.

1. Click on the Reports tab and find the All Reports option on the left-hand side. 
2. At the top, you’ll see a tab labeled Subscribed. 
3. Now, you can manage your subscriptions and add new reports.

How to find your Subscribed Reports

If you want to see what reports you’re currently subscribed to:

1. First, go to the Reports tab. 
2. Next, look at the sidebar on the left and click the option that says All Reports.
3.  In the menu on the right, sort the reports by Subscribed.

How to Subscribe Other Salesforce Users to a Report

Now that you know how to subscribe yourself to reports, you can subscribe others as well. Salesforce allows you to choose users, groups, and roles for report subscriptions. So, for example, you can send reports on how many hours your dev team has worked for a client to your Human Resources department, so they’re billed correctly.

To subscribe users, groups, and roles to reports, follow these steps.

1. First, navigate to the Reports tab on the Report Run Page. 
2. Next, click Subscribe. 
3. When it brings you to the Edit Subscription menu, set the schedule of how often you’d like the report to send. 
4. You can also add conditions before sending a scheduled report. That means that the email won’t go out with the subscribed reports until all of these conditions are met. 
5. After you’ve set the schedule on the conditions if chosen, navigate to Send To. You are automatically selected as the only recipient of the report. 
6. If you would like to add others or take yourself off the report, hit the Edit Recipients button. 
7. This area will show the users, groups, and rules with access permissions for the report here. You can add and remove recipients here.
8. When you’re finished, you can close the window, and it will save your recipients. 

Now that you’ve set that up, the reports will send to the email addresses found under Settings > Email > My Email Settings. If you haven’t sent an email yet under My Email Settings, the emails will automatically go out to the address associated with each person’s Salesforce user.

Tips on Subscribing Others to Reports

Here are a couple of helpful pointers for subscribing others to reports.

1. First, each user can have up to five report subscriptions. This is regardless of what type of user they are within your Salesforce org. 
2. You also won’t see the recipients listed on the emails, so you will have to go back to Salesforce to see them. If you were working with a platform user, an admin must enable these features.
3. Remember how these reports live inside of folders? To send the report to a user, the user must have access to the folder. Don’t forget to check this before continuing. 
4. You can subscribe up to 500 users to each report. If you exceed this, some users will not receive the emails.

How Do I Manage Report Schedules in Salesforce?

Report schedules make sure that the information in your reports is up-to-date. The Schedule Report page lets you manage the frequency and conditions for sending out scheduled reports. Here, you can schedule a new report run, change an existing schedule, view current schedule jobs, and delete scheduled runs. 

View Existing Report Schedules

1. To view a report schedule, navigate to the Reports tab.
2. Next, hover over the checkmark in the Schedule column.
3. This shows you how often the report goes out and the next date it is scheduled to run. 
4. Keep in mind that Salesforce users who don’t have permission to schedule reports will not see this information.

To see a report’s schedule from the schedule report page, follow these two steps.

1. Click on the report’s name on the Reports tab. 
2. After that, click the Schedule Future Runs button on the run report drop-down menu.

If you want to see all the scheduled reports within your organization:

1. Navigate to Setup. 
2. Click the Scheduled Jobs option.
3. Here you will see all of your organization’s scheduled reports. If you don’t see this, check that you have the View Setup and configuration permissions.

Change a Report’s Schedule

If there is a report with an existing schedule that you’d like to change, for a score of the reports tab and then click the name of the scheduled report. Next, hit the schedule future runs option from the run report menu. Here you can make the changes to the report schedule. When you’re done, make sure to hit save report schedule to keep the changes that you made.

Delete a Scheduled Run

If for whatever reason you would like to delete a scheduled run for a report, you can do it without deleting the entire report. 

1. First, go to the Reports tab and then click on the report’s name that you’d like to delete. 
2. Click Schedule Future Runs on the Run Report menu.
3. Then, click on Schedule Report. 
4. Now, the run schedule for that report is canceled, but the report is not sent to the recycle bin. You can set a new schedule or keep the report unscheduled.

How Do I Manage Report Notifications?

Notifications for reports let you know when data meets a particular set of criteria that you set. You can select what you want to be notified about and what conditions are essential to you to receive relevant notifications. You can also set up notifications for the Salesforce app, email, and on Chatter. Just remember that the report has to be saved before you set notifications.

Also, keep in mind that your notifications on reports are not related to the option which lets you schedule future runs. The Schedule Future Runs feature lets you send email reports at a given time with or without specifying which conditions you need them to meet. If you want to schedule email reports, choose the Schedule Future Runs option from the Run Report menu instead.

Changing Report Notification Settings

In order to set and change your notification settings, follow along here.

1. Click on the Report Run page. 
2. Next, hit Subscribe. 
3. On the Report Subscription page, select if you want to receive a notification each time your data meets these conditions or if you wish to receive it the first time. 

Setting conditions helps you avoid repetitive and unhelpful notifications. The requirements can be related to three different areas; aggregate, operator, and value. You can set up to five conditions for each report. You can also schedule checks to see if the report meets those conditions, Including daily, weekly, or every weekday.

When you choose to receive notifications, you can select the most helpful type for the task at hand. For example, you can send a notification within the Salesforce app, post it to Chatter, have it send an email, or set it to carry out in Apex action. This could be something like escalating a case or creating a task. Make sure to set up your notifications so they only give you relevant updates.

Wrapping it Up

Report subscriptions are an intelligent way to make sure that valuable information gets into the right hands. When you automate their distribution, you reduce human error and save time used to reach more of your company’s goals. 

Now that you understand how Salesforce reports work, how to set up subscriptions, and manage their schedules and notifications, your team will have even more resources to put towards growth. Remember to check back in for more ideas on how you can get even more out of Salesforce. 

Mike Walsh

CEO of CloudMyBiz Salesforce CRM consulting services with a deep knowledge in the lending industry. Taking keen interest in the project management side of operations, playing a vital role in the 31% YOY company growth. Strategic leader, mastering the ability to problem solve at every level of the business, providing effective solutions for clients.