Additional information stored on transaction to simplify/enhance/enable native reporting
For every client I have worked with, I have added a handful of formula fields to the transaction object to help with reporting - but it would be even better if this data could just be stored statically on the transaction when it is created. Due to the default limitation of only being able to link to 10 objects, the formulas can't actually reach through to all the objects without contacting Salesforce to increase the limit from 10 to 15 - which is an absolute maximum, and if the users are on the ERP release, even that doesn't solve the problem.
The fields that would be really useful to have -
- Related To ID: a single text field that stores the ID of the record that spawned the transaction.:
- Related to Name: a single text field that stores the name of the record that spawned the transaction
- Related to Link: a URL field that uses these 2 values to create a single field that will link to the related record - regardless of what type of record - Billing Line, AP line, JE Line, etc.
- Header ID: a single text field that stores the ID of the header record related to the detail record that spawned a transaction (The AP for an AP line JE for a JE Line, etc) - or the detail record itself if it doesn't have a header ex; Cash Receipt, Scheduled Revenue Expense, etc)
- Header Name: a single text field that stores the name of the record specified in the Header ID field.
- Header Link: a URL field that uses these 2 values to create a single field that will link to the related header record.
- Source Type: a picklist field that generally specifies what type of record spawned the transaction. - It's best to use a 2 or 3 letter representation so that columns on matrix reports stay small: AP, AR, JE, CD, CR, BCR, SRE, etc.
Having a single field in reports that links to the related record is so much more useful than having to add a separate field for each of the 7 (or 11 for ERP) possible objects that could spawn a transaction.
Similarly - being able to group transactions by their header records is also tremendously useful. It can partially be accomplished by using custom report types - but again - it requires using several different fields if you have records from different object types - which makes native summary reports and matrix reports impossible, and the only option without these enhancements is to export the data to excel and manually massage the data into a useful format.
-
Rebecca,
Thanks for suggesting this. I think all of these are good suggestions. I believe we can add the following with no problem:
- Related to ID
- Related to Name
- Header ID
- Header Name
- Source Type
The related to link and header link have had issues as these count towards the limits of the number of objects you can link to. Also with these advanced formula fields the reporting engine is affected and the performance starts to crawl more slowly. We actually had a related to link in the package originally and had to remove it.
Let me know if you have anymore thoughts on the links.
Thanks,
Tony
-
I just wanted to bump this - it would still be really helpful.
Something else all of my clients have found really helpful is a field called transaction source type that simply states what type of object created the transaction. JE, AR, AP, CD, CR, etc. It can be VERY helpful when reconciling an account - like AR or AP - to see the amount that was booked from Billings vs. Cash Receipts or if there's an entrty from an unexpected object.
-R
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
6 comments