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Reporting: advanced how-tos

Updated

Three edge cases that come up once you’re building non-trivial reports.

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Lookup relationship fields in custom object reports

When a custom object connects to another object through a lookup relationship field, that object’s fields can be added to the report.

  1. Go to Reports > Other Reports.
  2. Select a custom object report, or create a new report using the custom object.
  3. Under Report Fields, find the lookup relationship field you want to add. You can also use the search bar under Report Fields if you know the field’s name.
  4. Drag the field from the list onto the report.
  5. When you’re finished editing, click Save.
Running a Relationship Report in Insightly CRM — The screenshot shows the Relationship Report builder in Insightly CRM, displaying report fields, filter options, and a sample result row for a relationship named “Kourtney” owned by Kourtney Stuthard. This helps users understand how to configure and run a relationship report, including adding filters and exporting results to Excel.

Running a Relationship Report in Insightly CRM

Formatting date and time fields for grouping

Grouping records by date or time requires the field to be formatted appropriately first. You can format several date/time fields on one report, each with its own format, but a single date/time field per grouping is recommended.

  1. Go to Reports, open the report, and find the date/time field you want to use (e.g. Date Created or Date Due).
  2. Click the field’s three-dot menu and select Format Column Data.
  3. Under Choose Date Format, select a format.
  4. Under Choose Time Format, select a format. This dropdown also has options to include a time without a date or to not show a time.
  5. Click Save Format.
  6. Drag the date/time field to the grouping section.
  7. Click Save.
Format Date Column Data Dialog Box — A modal dialog in Insightly CRM’s Advanced Reporting allows users to choose a date format (shown as 2/10/2020) and a time format (set to “Don’t show time”) for a report column. This setting controls how date values appear in exported or displayed reports, with options to save or cancel the changes.

Format Date Column Data Dialog Box

Saving a Filtered Opportunity Report in Insightly — The screenshot shows an Opportunity Report configured with a “Won is checked” filter and grouped by Date Closed (Actual), with the Save button highlighted in red. This illustrates where users should click to preserve their report settings after setting up filters and display columns.

Saving a Filtered Opportunity Report in Insightly

Troubleshooting custom reports

When a report returns nothing or the wrong records, the cause is usually the data or the filter conditions rather than the report itself. Two common traps: incomplete data entry, and two AND conditions on a single-value field, which can never both be true.

A third trap is date filters. Insightly’s date filters can use static dates or relative dates. A static date is a single date entered directly into the field, such as 10/31/2015. A relative date is a reference like Today, Next Week, or Last Quarter. If you want a report that always shows leads created after a fixed point, use the static date; entering “Today” instead means the filter always looks at the current date, so it never returns results.

Adding a Report Filter with Empty Operator — The image shows the Report Filters and Parameters panel in Insightly CRM, where a filter is being configured using “Date Closed (Forecast)” as the field and “is empty” as the operator. This demonstrates how to filter report results to show only records where a specific date field has no value entered.

Adding a Report Filter with Empty Operator

Report Filters Using AND Logic Operator — The screenshot shows a report filter configuration with two filter rows, both filtering by “Status” — one set to “not started” and one to “in progress” — connected by an AND operator highlighted with a red box. A red arrow points to the empty results table, illustrating that using AND between two different status values returns no results because a record cannot have two statuses simultaneously.

Report Filters Using AND Logic Operator

Adding OR Filter Logic to Report Filters — The image shows a report filter configuration with two filter rows combined using an OR operator, filtering tasks where Status equals “not started” OR “in progress.” This demonstrates how combining filters with OR logic returns results matching either condition, as seen in the results table showing three IN PROGRESS tasks.

Adding OR Filter Logic to Report Filters

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