Bucketing is a relatively new reporting feature from Salesforce that allows you to simplify data in a report. You can quickly categorize your data in a report without having to create a new formula field. The premise is simple: you create groupings that “bucket” records into ranges you define.
Examples of how to use bucketing to easily manipulate your reporting data:
- All donations grouped into categories by amount (ie. average, big, really big, major!)
- All organizations grouped into regions based on the state they are in (ie. West Coast, Midwest, East Coast)
- All child contacts grouped by age ranges (ie. babies, toddlers, preschoolers, big kids)
Previously an administrator would have had to create a new formula field on the object to segment data in this way (example: formula field on organizations to display West Coast if State = CA, OR, WA)
We recently used bucketing for an organization that wanted to report on all of their children grouped into manageable age ranges. They track each child’s age on the contact record but didn’t want to create a new formula field to display the age range on the child record because they wanted to be able to easily redefine the ranges.
Step-by-Step instructions to set up bucketing in Salesforce reporting with our example:
- Create a report that pulls all child contact records.
- Drag and drop the “Add Bucket Field” selection from the list of fields on the left into the preview section in the middle. (I put it next to the child’s Age field.)
- Choose the Source Column field from which you will create your buckets (Current Age), name the new bucket field (Age Range) and define the bucket ranges. Create as many buckets as necessary for the data you are working with. (For our example, we kept it simple.)
- You will see the new bucket values in the report preview.
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Choose this field to create a summary grouping (by clicking on the arrow on the right of the column and selecting “Summary”) so all the child records would be grouped per Age Range.
6. Click Run Report to view the final product.
This only took few minutes and now the organization has a much more manageable view of their “bucketed” data in this report!
Note* Bucket fields only show on the report they were created so need to be recreated in different reports. If this is a field you would use frequently it might be better to create a formula field on the object, but bucketing is a great solution for quickly manipulating data in reports!
For more information and details on bucketing data in Salesforce report, check out the below resource, or contact us at Sputnik Moment – we’d love to help you with your Salesforce reporting needs!
Can't see the video? Watch it on YouTube: Bucketing in Salesforce