Salesforce Tips #4 - Create and Share Folders for Reports & Dashboards

In this post, I will show you how to create and share folders for Reports and Dashboards. You can then adapt them to your needs and situation. You will also find related videos on how to create then enrich Reports and Dashboards as well as how to schedule and subscribe to them.

Now, follow these simple steps to quickly create and share folders for Reports and Dashboards in Salesforce.

Let's get started!

I click first on the Report in Sales, then on the left-hand side, I will go back to My Folders, then listing All Folders.

Folders under Reports Tab

The concept of folders is very similar that what you have on your computer, regardless of using Windows or Mac. You create a folder and share it with others. For this example, I create a folder named Marketing then I will show you how I share it with other people.

I click on New Folder, then I name it Marketing.

Creating a new Folder

What we see here is that currently there are no reports in the folder:

Now I have two options:

• Either I create a new report by clicking New Report and selecting the required information. I already covered this in a separate video. Or

• I can go on and select an existing Report and move it into the folder I just created.

Let’s move an existing Report! I have selected the report named Marketing:

One way is to select Report, then go into Edit and Properties. If I scroll down, I have the Folders and I can change it to All Folder and type in Marketing.

In the Report setting, select the Folder you want to place the Report in

At the moment, my Marketing folder is empty. However, by selecting this folder, the report (also named Marketing) will be moved there.

Marketing Folder

If I don't do it this way and I have a report to work with, I must duplicate it. I would click Edit, then Save it as a Copy of Marketing.

I will just rename it, I'll keep it as-is, then change the holding folder to Marketing. By default, the report that you create will be in a private folder, which will only be accessible to the Salesforce user who created the report.

Now we turn to share folders for all the reports and dashboards. Currently, I'm showing you the Reports side, but for Dashboards, it will be the same.

To share information (the report or dashboard) that you created with other users, you need to move them to a dedicated folder and it is necessary to change the folder property to shared.

This is what I'm going to do now. I go back to All Folders then go into My Folders and look for Marketing. I will click here on the right-hand side on Share.

Sharing a folder

I can then add different Salesforce users or public groups. I won't cover public groups in this video. Just for now, let's keep it simple, and let's add Salesforce users (if needed) to share with.

Adding users to share a folder with

I will type in their name and then select what type of access they have. It can either be View, Edit, or Manage.

If you're uncertain what the difference is and what they can do under each access type, I would suggest you go on Salesforce website where you will have a snippet. Let me just show you right now...

As you can see here, there's three levels of access: View, Edit, and Manage:

Compare Access Levels for Report and Dashboard Folders

• If it's View, that means they can only access/view the report and they can't do any modifications.

• If it's an Edit, they can make some slight changes to the report and

• if it's Manage, they can also change or modify the folder per se.

This is key for you to understand the differences between the access types over here. We can always update these access levels. When I add users, I specify what type of access they can have. Once this is good, I will click Done.

Now, this was for the Report section.

When it comes to Dashboard, is this the same concept and in the same steps to create a folder.

I will go to Dashboard and here I have My Folder section on the left-hand side. I can create a New Folder, I name it Marketing, also.

Creating a new folder in Dashboard Tab

I also need to share this folder. This is key to separating Reports from Dashboards.

Sharing a Dashboard Folder with Other Salesforce Users

When it comes to folders: if you share your folders for Reports with users, they will be able to see the reports in there.

• But if the Dashboard form folders are not shared, your users won't be able to access the dashboards where the reports are displayed and vice versa.

• If a dashboard is shared across multiple users or the Dashboard folder is shared, but the Report folder is not shared, your user will see empty widgets and won't have any data.

Therefore, it's always key to share both your Reports and Dashboard folders with the respected users.

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