Activity Report Does Not Display Expected Records

This article explains why an Activity report in Salesforce can return unexpected results for some users. The causes include role hierarchy, archiving rules, and filter settings. Review each of the following areas to identify the cause.

Role Hierarchy

Users at any role level can view, edit, and report on all data that is owned by or shared with users below them in their role hierarchy, unless your org's sharing model for an object specifies otherwise.

If an activity's owner does not have an assigned role, the activity does not appear in reports.

Archived Activities

To help Salesforce run as efficiently as possible, the following activities are archived and made unavailable in reports, list views, and search:

• Events with a due date more than 365 days old.
• Closed Tasks with due dates more than 365 days old.
• Closed Tasks without a due date that were created more than 365 days ago.

You can view archived activities on record pages or extract them through the API. To keep activities available longer, increase the Archive Days setting for your organization. See Additional Resources.

Filters and Private Contacts

Make sure that you use the proper filters and check whether the Contact is private. For example, use "All Activities" instead of "My Activities". If the Contact is private, the related activities show up only for the Contact Owner.

Activities Created by Users Who Do Not Own the Related Record

An Activity report can show activities related to an account or contact that was created by a user who is not the owner of that account or contact. When a task is created, the WhatId field (related to records such as Account or Opportunity) or the WhoId field (related to records such as Contact or Lead) is automatically populated. As long as the user has access to the related record, they can view the activities, regardless of whether they own the account or contact.

For example, suppose the Truck account belongs to Jack, and Josh creates a task related to that account. The WhatId field is populated with the ID of the Truck account. When you run an "Accounts with Activities" report, the task that Josh created appears because it is linked to the account.