Report

• A report returns a set of records that meets certain criteria and displays it in organized rows and columns. Report data can be filtered, grouped, and displayed graphically as a chart. Reports are stored in folders, which control who has access.
• In reports data displayed is as per running user's security access. Reports can be run on both standard and custom objects provided object must have permission for Report creation. Reports are stored in folders. Users with access to these folders can run the reports.
• Reports data is always generated in real-time. When a report is saved, reports configuration parameters are stored - but the generated data is not stored.

Types of Report:

1. Tabular report:  This is the most basic report. It displays just the row of records in a table-like format with grand total. Tabular reports cannot be used for generating dashboards.
2. Summary report: This is the most commonly type of report. It allows grouping of rows of data. It supports sorting and displaying subtotals. For example in a recruiting app, a summary report could be used to display open positions classified by department name.
3. Matrix report: Matrix report summarize information in a grid format. Matrix reports allows records to be grouped by both columns and rows.
4. Joint Report:Use the joined report format to create multiple views of the data contained in a single report. You can add multiple report types to a joined report, create standard and cross-block custom summary formulas, add a chart, and more.

Summary and Matrix reports can be used to generate dashboards.Report display upto 2000 rows of data. Larger reports can be emailed to Excel.

Report Type:

1. Standard Report Type:
1. Created when an object is created
2. Always inner joins
3. Cannot be modified.
4. Created when relationships between objects are created 
2. Custom Report type
1. Created by Admin or users with “Manager Custom Report types”.
2. Used to streamline the reporting process.

Use of bucket field in Reports in Salesforce:

• Bucket field in Reports in Salesforce is used to group values to the name we specify.
• Bucketing lets you quickly categorize report records without creating a formula or a custom field.
• When you create a bucket field, you define multiple categories (buckets) used to group report values.
• Custom reports let the developers define which all fields should be available in a report. Custom report allows user to change field names. Custom reports allow developers to select related fields (upto four levels). The custom reports also allow developers to add sections to group fields. Once a custom report is created it is available in reports tab and user may create reports from it.

Limitations of Salesforce reports:

• User Interface of Salesforce reports and dashboards is fixed. Salesforce does not support pixel perfect report.
• Salesforce reports do not support importing data from other sources
• When displaying objects and their children, Salesforce does not support reporting on objects that do not have any children.
• If an object has two different related lists, then Salesforce reporting does not support displaying both these related lists together.

Work-around these limitations,:

Salesforce customers have the following three options.

• Reporting as a service: Data resides on Salesforce. New Reports get generated from same data source
• BI as a service: Data is moved to a different destination on cloud. Reporting is performed on this new data server.
• Datawarehousing as a service: Data is exported to the customers server and reports are generated from the server located at the customers locations.
• Use VF Page for Complex Report