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Learn to Explore Data
See what unexpected insights you can surface by interactively exploring and visualizing your data, using CRM Analytics tools.
Required Editions
| Available in Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience. |
| Available with CRM Analytics, which is available for an extra cost in Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited Editions. Also available in Developer Edition. |
| User Permissions Needed | |
|---|---|
| To view visualizations: | Use CRM Analytics |
- Create a Lens
When you look at data in an exploratory mode, you do so in a lens. A lens has several aspects: it’s how you view data in a dataset, it’s the place where you explore the data graphically, and it’s the basis for building any dashboard. - Group Your Data into Categories
Group data to organize it so that the data is displayed in useful categories. You can group your data by up to ten dimensions or date fields in charts and tables, except in blended queries. - Filter Your Data
Apply filters in a lens to unclutter your chart and focus on the subset of data that’s most relevant for your business. You can create partial filters on measures and dimensions. You can also create global lens filters on measures, dimensions, or dates and apply them to the compare table in a single step. You can even apply filter logic to a lens or a dashboard step. - Change the Sort Order
Choose whether data in your chart visualization is sorted ascending, sorted descending, or unsorted. - Change the Chart Type
Switch between chart types to see which visualization options tell the most compelling story for your data. - Change Measures
Your choice of measure defines your entire visualization and determines the scope of your exploration. For example, change the measure and the aggregation method from “Count of Opportunities” to “Sum of Amount.” Then add a second measure to see 2 visualizations side by side. - Format Numbers
Choose either preset or custom number formats. Specify custom formats for positive, negative, and zero values. - Drill Deeper Into Data
You can drill deeper into your data to explore the underlying information and surface hidden insights. - Focus on Selected Data
You can focus your exploration by changing the view to include only specific data from an existing table or chart. - Explore Multiple Datasets with a Single Query
Answers to business questions sometimes require context beyond the current dataset. Or, your dataset structure may not match the way you want to explore your data. To surface insights that require data from disparate datasets, blend the data from multiple datasets in a lens. Then query the blended data just as you would with a single dataset. - Optimize Data Operations with Semi and Anti Joins
Semi- and anti-joins offer a straightforward way to compare datasets in a lens. They're particularly useful for identifying the presence or absence of related rows without needing complex queries. For example, you can easily find accounts that have at least one opportunity or those that have no opportunities. - Change the Chart Scale
With some data, a chart displays values that range widely on an axis and make the visualization more difficult to understand. You can constrict the range's scale by applying a logarithmic scale. Scaling is available for certain charts only. - Return to a Previous View by Using History
Exploring your data can lead you down many paths. Not all of them are fruitful, and that’s OK. CRM Analytics keeps a full history of your activity in a lens. If you’ve changed your lens in undesired ways, or just want to see those nifty animations again, use history to backtrack quickly to a previous state in your visualization. - Limit the Size of Your Query Results
Interested in reviewing just the top 10 accounts in your product pipeline—without excessive scrolling? To fast-track to meaningful insights and for improved performance on your dashboards, you can limit the size of query results in a lens. - View the Query Behind Your Lens
CRM Analytics uses Salesforce Analytics Query Language (SAQL) or Salesforce Object Query Language (SOQL) behind the scenes in lenses and dashboards to gather data for visualizations. You can view and edit the underlying code that’s written as you explore, or copy it for use elsewhere. - Clip a Lens to a Dashboard
To include the lens in a dashboard, clip it. When you clip the lens, CRM Analytics adds a query to all the open dashboards. If a dashboard isn’t open, CRM Analytics adds the query to a new dashboard in dashboard designer. After you add the query to the designer, you can apply it to a widget in the dashboard. The widget overrides the visualization settings of the lens—the widget determines how to display the results of the query. - Create a Model from a Lens
Quickly create a model from a CRM Analytics lens. After creating a lens to explore your data, you can easily get insights directly from the lens. Filters that are applied to the lens get persisted saving you time with model setup.
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