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Reporting - tips

Introduction

This Reporting tips training module has been designed to provide you with several tips to help you use the features of reporting easier and more efficiently.

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Separating delineated lists into separate cells

On multi-select picklists in Salesforce (e.g. Main Activities, Neighbourhoods) it is possible to select more than one value. Because multiple values are stored in a single field, this means that when the report is exported to Excel, all of the values will appear in a single cell, delineated by a semicolon.

Navigate

This is fine for a summary of the details in the field, but if you want to do more with the data, it’s handy to separate these values into separate cells.
Excel has a handy feature that lets you do just that with its Convert Text to Columns wizard. Just follow these steps:

  1. Export your report to Excel
  2. Select the column with the delineated values you want to separate (Main Activities in this example):
Search
  1. Click on the DATA menu on the ribbon
  2. Click on Text to Columns
View and Edit
  1. Then simply follow the wizard instructions:
VE Options

You can click next on most of the defaults, but make sure ‘Semicolon’ is selected in step 2, as that’s how the values are delineated in Excel:

VE Customize
VE Customize 2

Click Finish, and the individual values from the multi-select field should now be spaced out in separate cells:

Create

All you have to do now is add relevant headers to your new columns, e.g. Main Activity 1, Main Activity 2…

Create 2
Last modified on 21 September 2023
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