Creating Dataviews

FinancialForce Reporting can work with any standard dataviews that your installed packages provide. To create these in your org:

1. Click the Dataviews tab.
2. Click Go to list all the dataview options.
3. Click Create Standard Dataviews and wait for the dataview list to refresh.

You can customize the dataviews supplied with FinancialForce Reporting, as described in Editing Dataviews.

Note:

When displaying data, dataviews use your Salesforce field-level security. As a result, some dataviews may contain restricted fields. Restricted fields are fields that contain data that your Salesforce field-level security does not give you permission to see, for example salaries and bonuses. If your action view detects a restricted field that you do not have permission to see, you see a message similar to:

All fields are included in the action view, but restricted fields are grayed out where you do not have permission to view the data, and these columns are blank.

When you create a dataview, if you select a row for a restricted field, when you hover over the you see the message: "This is a restricted field. Remove it or your selection fails." If you include a restricted field, at runtime you see the error message: "You cannot select restricted fields <fieldname>, <fieldname>"

In some situations you might want to create your own dataview from scratch.

To create a new dataview:

1. Click the Dataviews tab.
2. Click New next to Recent Dataviews on the home page.
3. Specify a unique Name for the new dataview.
4. Pick the Primary Object for the dataview. For example, a dataview for inquiring on opportunities typically has a primary object of Opportunity.
5. [Optional] If you want to join other objects to the primary object, click the Joins tab then:
   1. Highlight the primary object (displayed as an orange node) then choose whether you want to join another object to it via a lookup, a relationship, or an aggregate. For lookups, choose the lookup object that you want to join to; for relationships and aggregates, choose the related object that you want to join to. Only lookups, relationships, and aggregates relevant to the selected object are available.
   2. Change the join name if you do not like the default. The name is displayed in the tree structure and is used in the Source field on the Fields tab.
   3. Click Add Lookup, Add Relationship, or Add Aggregate depending on the join type. A node is inserted below the primary object, representing the new join. Lookup joins are green nodes, relationship joins are blue, and aggregate joins are orange.
   4. Continue joining other objects to nodes in the tree by selecting the node and creating a join to the object. New nodes are always inserted below the currently selected node. Relationship and aggregate joins can only be added to the root node.
6. On the Fields tab, click Add to add a line for each field. The primary object shows in the Source column.
7. Click in the Object Field to show the drop-down list of field names. Select an object field to include in the dataview.
   
   Note:
   
   If you are using a multi-currency org, and if the field type is Currency, then you can select whether to use the record currency value or the user currency equivalent of the record currency value. User currency values are only available for record currency values where the field type is Currency.
8. For each field you can:
   • Change the name if you do not want to accept the default; the field name must be unique across the dataview.
   • Set a common name to identify this field across dataviews. For more information see About Common Names and Drilling.
   • Enable the Selectable checkbox if the field should be available to use in selection rules. This checkbox is unavailable for fields that cannot be used in selection rules. Every dataview requires at least one selectable field.
   • Enable the Presentable checkbox if the field should be available to use in presentation columns. Every dataview requires at least one presentable field.
   • Enable the Reversible checkbox for a numeric field if you want to allow its values to be displayed with reverse sign.
   • Enable the Aggregatable checkbox for a numeric field if you want to allow its values to be aggregated when duplicate rows are summarized.
9. Select one field to be the Key. We recommend that this is a field that uniquely identifies each row in the action view results, for example an ID. For more information see What is a Dataview?.
10. [Optional] Click Add All IDs to add all the ID fields on the objects to your dataview. The ID fields are used to find records such as transactions or accounts for example when drilling, using actions or a related content pane. The ID fields do not need to be selectable or presentable. You can choose to add the ID fields individually if you prefer. By default the ID fields are not displayed so click Show IDs if you want to review them.
11. [Optional] If you want to transpose data to a new field, on the Fields tab click to define the source object fields that can populate the field. For examples of when you might want to transpose data, see What is a Dataview?. For steps to specify the source object field see Dataview - Transpose Data.
12. [Optional] If you have created an aggregate join or relationship join and want to retrieve only a subset of data from the child object, you can do this by creating a join filter. To do this, go to the Joins tab and click on the join that you want to filter. For information about how to build the filter criteria, see Dataview - Edit Join Fields.
13. [Optional] On the Actions tab, add actions for any functions that you want to be available within the results grid. For information about creating actions from Apex classes see Setting Up Actions.
14. Click Save.

If you clone the dataview, any unsaved changes are saved to the new dataview but are not saved back to the original dataview.

Note:

You cannot edit existing nodes in the tree structure on the Joins tab. If you need to modify a node, you must delete it and add it again. When you delete a node, any "child" nodes are also deleted.