Explore Real-Time Report Building Blocks

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Identify the three building blocks of real-time reports.
  
• Describe the types of report dimensions.
  
• List the attributes of report metadata.
  

Key Performance Indicators

Real-time reports are all about data. To make sure you have the right data for your report, first identify key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure things like business performance. Here are some standard KPIs:

• Base Volume KPI: The baseline volume of a product sold from a store without any promotional activities
  
• Target Volume KPI: The product volume that must sell to meet a sales target
  
• Incremental volume KPI: The additional volume planned for sale using promotions
  

This basic formula defines the relationship between the three KPIs:

Base Volume + Incremental Volume = Target Volume

If you know the base and target volumes for products sold from your stores, you can easily calculate the volume you must sell using promotions, which is your incremental volume.

In the real world, calculations are more complicated than simply using the formula above. For instance, one KPI can have a dependency on multiple KPIs. So, it’s important to identify the data your business requires and how each piece of data relates to others. Once you establish KPI dependencies, Salesforce does the complex calculations. Namely, when you enter the value for a certain KPI, Salesforce returns the values of dependent KPIs.

Set Up Reporting KPIs

Fatima’s committed to setting up KPIs correctly, especially those she plans to use in Gustavo’s report. Without the right KPI design, the report data won’t update in real-time. Here are the types of KPI she uses:

• Read KPI: This KPI type is imported into Salesforce and displays on pages like promotion P&L or the account plan.
  
• Calculated KPI: This type of KPI is dynamic and is based on one or more formulas or dependent KPIs.
  

Based on Gustavo’s request, Fatima defines three KPIs in the real-time account plan report, including Base Volume, Incremental Volume, and Total Volume. Here’s how she sets it up.

With this set up, the incremental volume for a product is updated in the Consumer Goods Processing Services (CGPS), and the total volume for this product is calculated on the fly. Both of these numbers reflect in real-time reports. If the KPIs aren’t set up correctly, the numbers in a real-time report would be outdated. So, before creating a real-time report, make sure you have set up all the related KPIs accurately.

Report Dimension

A report is useful only when it shows accurate data. For every report, define a dimension to specify the data shown. The dimension attributes determine the properties of the data, such as the data type or its origin.

Here are the four report dimensions you can define:

• Product dimension: Defines only the product hierarchy levels. Other product dimensions are defined in report metadata, which we visit later in the module.
  
• Promotion dimension: Specifies promotion attributes. Depending on the attribute definition (fielddb and fieldsf), the attributes are fetched from either CGPS or Salesforce.
  
• Tactic dimension: Defines tactic product condition attributes.
  
• Payment dimension: Sets payment attributes.
  

For a promotion real-time report, Fatima creates a promotion dimension. The example screen shows the dimension and its attributes in the RTR Report Configuration window.

In the promotion dimension, Fatima defines the “​​fieldsf” attribute as “cgcloud__Slogan__c”. So, the promotion report fetches values from this field stored in Salesforce. To show promotion phases in the same report, she modifies the promotion dimension. Because the value of the phase field is stored in CGPS as part of the promotion dimension, she defines “phase” as the “fielddb” attribute along with the “​​fieldsf” attribute. The report now shows the promotion phases, which are fetched from the phase field.

Report Metadata

Report metadata is a JSON that defines the fields and KPIs shown in a report, as well as other visual aspects. Here are the key metadata components:

In this unit, you learned how Fatima defines the right KPIs for Gustavo’s real-time account plan report. In the next unit, explore report metadata in greater detail.

Resources

• Salesforce Help: Components of a Real-Time Report