FAQs: Reports

FAQs: Reports

1. What are reports in Zoho CRM?

As an organization, the more you grow, the more complex your data becomes. This data holds powerful information about your customers, employees, profit, sales, opportunities, and other aspects of your business. It is important for you to be able to derive insights from this data to track the latest trends and your organization's progress and growth and to help you identify the latest trends and plan your budget.
Reports are a way of combining relevant data towards a goal, for example, a monthly report to view newly acquired leads for a month.

2. How can I create reports in Zoho CRM?

Reports can be created and shared in different formats by CEOs, managers, sales reps, and other CRM users, and are built using data from one or more modules in your CRM. Reports can be created for a specific module and the data associated with it in another module, for example, accounts and their associated contacts or deals and their associated quotes.

3. What are the different types of reports that are available in Zoho CRM?

There are three types of reports in Zoho CRM:

    • Tabular Report displays data as a list of records in a table format. For example, the contacts mailing list report.

    • Summary Report is similar to Tabular Report, except the records are in a list with subtotals, groupings, and other summary information. For example, a revenue report where the total revenue is added up in a column.

    • Matrix Report displays the data summarized in a grid format using both the horizontal and vertical columns. For example, a car dealership generates two daily reports: Sales grouped by salesperson and then by product, and sales grouped by product and then by salesperson. These two reports can be combined using a matrix report. 

4. Why am I unable to see some of the fields in Reports?

You may not be able to see some of the fields in reports if your administrator has disabled them. You can view only those fields that are displayed in your page layout. You can see all data for which you have Read/Write access, including records owned by you and those shared by other users with you.

5. Can I schedule my reports and send them to my colleagues periodically?

Yes, you can schedule the delivery of your reports and send them to your colleagues, the executive management, and non-Zoho CRM users by scheduling them to be sent daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly.  
Once you've configured the Report scheduler, the specified reports are delivered to the recipients' email addresses as an email attachment (XLS format) with a link to the specific report from the Zoho CRM Reports module. You can also send the PDF document to your recipients.
For more information, see Scheduling Reports.

6. Can I store all my personal reports in a folder?

Yes, you can store all your personal reports in a folder, which can be viewed only by you and users with the Administrator privilege. You can also make report folders publicly visible to other users in your organization.

7. How do I delete a folder in reports?

Before you delete a folder, ensure that all the reports inside the folder are moved to another folder or deleted. You can only delete a folder when it's empty.

  1. Click Recently Deleted.
  2. Select the recently deleted reports and click Delete Permanently.
  3. Hover over the folder you want to delete and click Delete.


8. Can my team members see the fields that they are otherwise restricted to see when I share it through a report?

Yes, your team members who are restricted from viewing certain fields inside a record can see them if it is present in a report that is shared with them. 

For example, if the field permission for account number is set to “Don’t Show” for the sales reps, and you share a report with them which has this field, then the reps will be able to view the account number irrespective of their field permission.

9. Can users see fields or records that are not accessible to them in the parent or child modules? 

 Yes.

  • In a report, users will be able to see all the records accessible to them in the primary module

  • If this primary module is connected to parent and/or child modules and fields from those parent/child modules are included in the report

  • Then, users will be able to see those fields and records, even if they don't have access to those fields or records in the parent/child module.

A report with contacts as the primary module, accounts as a parent module, and deals as a child module contains fields from all three modules. A user owns a contact record but doesn't have access to the contact's account record or the contact's deal record. When this user opens the report, they can :

  • View records in the Contacts module that the user has access to

  • View records from related deal record (child) or account record(parent) that the user does not have access to.

This applies when they have access to the modules but not to the specific records. If the user doesn't have access to either the parent or child module in their profile, they won't be able to view the report.

10. Why are some modules unavailable while creating a report?

Reports can be created for standard and custom modules. There are two main reasons why modules may not be visible while creating reports:
  1. Your administrator has restricted access to the module. 
    To enable access to those modules: 

    1. Log in to Zoho CRM with administrative privileges.

    2. Navigate to Setup > Customization > Modules and Fields.

    3. Click the more icon next to the desired module. 

    4. Click Module permissions.

    5. Select the profile that needs access to that module.

    6. Click Save.

  2. The module has been disabled by your administrator. 
    Disabled modules will not appear in the list of modules available while creating a report. For instance, if you want to create reports for Accounts, you need to ensure that the Accounts module is enabled. To enable any module, 

    1. Log in to Zoho CRM with administrative privileges.

    2. Go to Setup > Customization > Modules and Fields.

    3. In the List of Modules page, click Organize Modules.

    4. Select the module that you want to enable.

    5. Click Save.

Now you can find the module in the list of available modules for creating reports. 

11. How can I share reports with other users?

Reports provide useful insight and valuable information that helps management decide on their budgets, marketing activities, and growth rate and improve their overall decision making. So, it is important to be able to share reports with other users. Zoho CRM offers two ways to share reports:

Exporting and sharing reports with users: Use this option if you want to keep a copy of the report in your local storage. Each report can be exported as an Excel, CSV, or PDF file. 
To export reports:
  1. Click the Reports tab.
  2. Select the report from the required module in the Reports Home page. For example, Lead by Source from the Leads module.
  3. Click Export and select one of the following options:
    1. Export to Excel: To save the report in XLS format
    2. Export to CSV: To save the report in CSV format
    3. Export to PDF: To export the report as a PDF
Sharing the reports folder with users: The report folders help you keep your reports organized so you can share them easily with other users. A report can be moved from one folder to another. To share reports:
  1. Click the Reports tab.
  2. Click the gear icon next to the report folder in the Reports Home page.
  3. Click Edit.
  4. Choose Share with everyone or selected users based on your requirements.

12. What do FY and FQ mean?

FY stands for financial year and FQ stands for financial quarter. A financial year (FY) is a one-year period and a financial quarter (FQ) is a three-month period that an organization uses in budgets and reports. In Zoho CRM, you will come across these terms while filtering records in reports. E.g.: I want a report of deals lost in the past year. I need to set the appropriate criteria and use the Records created in Last FY filter.

13. How do I view reports?

Reports detailed, informative lists of records. Zoho CRM provides more than 40 different standard reports, and you can also create custom reports to meet your requirements. To view both standard and custom reports, click on the Reports tab and you will see a panel with a list of folders that contain different reports. Just click on a report to view it. Alternatively, if you know the name of the report, you can use the search option in the Reports module.

14. Can I create a report based on the Note Creation Time or Note Modification Time?

Yes, you can create a report based on the Note Creation Time or Note Modification Time. You can do so by specifying the Note Creation Time or note Modification Time criteria while creating reports.

15. How do I break down the performances of individual sales reps by month, instead of having just an annual comparison?

You can achieve this by generating a matrix report in the Deals module.
Follow these steps to create a matrix report:
  • Go to the Reports module.
  • Click on Create Report.
  • Select the Deals module as the primary module.
  • Under Report Type, select Matrix Report.
  • Select Deal Owner as the row heading, and Closing Date as the column heading. 
  • Group Dates by Month and Year.
  • Choose Amount under Columns to Total.
  • Run the report.
Read in greater detail about generating and customizing reports here.

16. How can I track what company equipment, tools and computers each employee has in their possession?

You can view the modules with values, such as company equipment, tools and computers by generating a report for them. 
Follow these steps to generate a report:
  • Go to Create Report.
  • Select the module for the report.
  • Choose the Report Type as Summary.
  • Add the columns that you want to the Selected Columns list.
  • In the Groupings column, group the information by owner.
  • Run the report.
Look at how to generate reports in greater detail here.

17. How can I extract emails across fields into a .CSV file and avoid duplicates?

You can create separate reports for the Leads and Accounts modules. Once you do this, add the email field as a column in your report and export it. This way, you can avoid duplicates.

18. Can I download all leads and contacts and include the industry field for each lead and contact?

You can do this by generating separate reports for leads and contacts. 
To create reports:
  • Go to the Reports module.
  • Choose the Leads module, and add the Industry field.
  • Generate a report and export it.
You can follow the same steps for the Contacts module as well.     

19. How do I track the status of emails that are sent from CRM?

You can track the status of emails sent from CRM and SalesInbox using the Email Analytics Report. The report gives you a summary of email statuses based on date, email template, module, and user. In order to view email analytics, Email Insights must be enabled in your account.
To view email analytics: 
  1. Click the Reports module.
  2. Select the Email Reports folder.
  3. Click Email Analytics in the Email Reports folder.
  4. Choose the parameters you want to filter the email statistics by. For example, Date Range, Group or Users.

20. Why does the number of Opened emails vary when seen through smart filter versus report?

If you filter records based on the email status through a smart filter (list view filter) or reports, you will get different results. This is because, when you use a smart filter to view emails that are "Opened", then all that records that have opened, opened and clicked or opened and responded emails will be displayed. Therefore, the smart filter will consider records with emails from all these categories.
 
However, in case of reports, when you filter records that have an email status as "opened", you will be able to view only those emails that are opened; the other status such as opened and clicked or opened and responded will not be considered. 

21. Can I restrict the reports only to certain selected users?

Yes. You can restrict the reports only to certain selected users, roles, or groups. You can do so by creating a Report Folder and giving access to the users, roles, or groups. Follow the steps given below to create a report folder with restricted access:
  1. Click the Reports tab.
  2. Choose from the existing reports and click Create Report Folder.
     
  3. In the Create Report Folder page, follow these steps:
  • Enter the Folder Name.
  • Enter the Folder Description.
  • Under Accessibility Details, choose from these options: 
  • Only Me: Select if you would like to enable the folder access only to you.
  • Everyone: Select if you want to make the folder public.
  • Selected Users: Select the users or user roles that can access the folder.
      4. Click Save and Move.

22. Can reports be filtered by region? For instance, can they be filtered by zip codes?

You can't filter reports based on region without entering the details inside the record, either manually or by importing them. Once these fields have been filled in the record (city, state), you can then filter your records and display them. 

23. I want to generate a lead status report to view leads that have remained in a particular stage for a certain number of days. Is this possible?

Blueprint in Zoho CRM is a process automation feature, which helps you streamline your sales process. Using Blueprint Reports you can see exactly how long a record has remained in a particular state.   

In addition to this, if you wish to generate a new report to see all leads that have remained in a particular state for a certain number of days, following is a simple alternative that employs workflow rules. 

Objective: 
To generate a report to see all leads that have remained in a particular state for a certain period - example 20 days or more. 

Solution: 
First, create a custom field of the Date type in the Leads module. Name it "Status Last Modified". This will store the date when the lead's status was last modified. 

Then create a workflow rule to automatically update the Status Last Modified field to the date when Lead Status is changed. The Lead Status report can then be generated using the Status Last Modified field.

Follow the steps below to create the above-mentioned workflow rule: 
  1. In the new workflow rule page, under When, choose Record action, select Field Update and pick the Lead Status field. 
  2. Under Which, choose All records. 
  3. Associate an Instant Action to this rule: Field Update. 
    Make the update as Status Last Modified = Execution Day 

Now, the Status Last Modified field will automatically be updated to the date when you modify the Lead Status field. Using this field, you can generate a report with the criteria "Status Last Modified >= 20" 



When you run this report, say Idle Leads Report, you will see all leads that have stayed in a particular state for more than 20 days. 

Note: 
It may appear that Status Last Modified is similar to the Last Modified Date of a record. However, the difference is, when Last Modified Date includes any change made to the record - Status Last Modified will refer only to the date when the Lead Status was updated. 

     



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