Oracle CRM On Demand Reporting
Chapter 1, Getting Started with Answers On Demand
This chapter from Oracle CRM On Demand Reporting outlines the various pre-built on-demand sales reports available in Oracle CRM On Demand. Read on to find an overview of each kind of report, including an explanation of what sales information is provided in each report and how that information is presented.
Explore the Prebuilt Reports
As you begin to think about the types of reports that you would like to build, the prebuilt reports in CRM On Demand can be a great resource to you. The prebuilt reports are an excellent source for reporting ideas as well as for examples of many of the different functions and views that you will want to include in some of your own reports. By running the prebuilt reports or opening them in Answers On Demand, you can learn a great deal about report design.
The rest of this chapter introduces the various prebuilt reports and identifies what these reports do and, perhaps more importantly, how they do what they do. One thing that you will undoubtedly notice about many of the prebuilt reports is that there is a distinct difference in the report when you run the report from the Reports tab and the design of what appears to be the same report when opened in Answers to examine the design. This is because these reports use dashboard prompts and run in a dashboard view. The preconfigured Dashboard reports visible on the Dashboard tab use many of these reports. Currently, you cannot edit standard dashboards for the Dashboard tab. You can, however, create custom public dashboards, as discussed in Chapter 13.
When you run a prebuilt report and see a separate view at the top of the window with one or more drop-down lists allowing you to filter the report data, this is likely a dashboard prompt that you will not see when you edit the same report in Answers On Demand.
A recurring theme that you should notice as you examine the prebuilt reports is simplicity. Most of these reports are quite simple in structure, and do not attempt to cram as much data as possible onto a single report. There is a clear purpose, or business question, that drives the report. When it comes to reporting, simple is almost always better. The natural trend seems to drive us in the other direction. This personal desire, or corporate directive, to do as much as possible with as few reports as possible may prove to be more difficult for you to overcome than the actual design and development of reports in general. Chapter 2 revisits this concept. For now, let us have a look at the prebuilt reports in CRM On Demand.
Quick Lists
The Quick Lists reports are the most simple of the prebuilt reports library. Their design meets the common needs of many businesses to see a logically organized list of records.
Opportunities By Account
This report provides a list of sales opportunities organized by the accounts to which those opportunities are related.