This service is for faculty, staff, and student workers who are or training to be a Salesforce EDA Report Writer.
The article below gives an overview of what a Salesforce Report Writer is at the University and the Expectations of those with this title.
What is a Salesforce Report Writer?
An individual who writes, edits, shares, and saves reports or dashboards within Salesforce EDA Environment for a department, school or college at the University of St. Thomas. They are a central resource to their team in unlocking the power of our data and taking ownership in the use and security of the data outputs created. They are confident in navigating the Salesforce EDA system and figuring out the best way to utilize the data within the system.
What are the Expectations of a Report Writer?
- Create, edit, share, and validate any reports or dashboards requested by their department, school, or college.
- Document every saved Salesforce EDA report or dashboard in the Data Cookbook.
- Be the point of contact for the department folder and sub-folder access.
- Be the point contact for creation of sub-folders within your department folders.
- Take ownership of the usage and ethics of the data utilized in the reporting and dashboarding environment.
- Take ownership of securely sharing and storing any data that is exported through Salesforce Reports.
Why does a Salesforce Report Writer need to Document every Report or Dashboard in the Data Cookbook?
The purpose of the Data Cookbook is to provide transparency into the data outputs utilized across the university with the top benefits being:
- Not Recreating the Wheel with Reports: With all of the individuals utilizing similar data fields and working to answer similar business questions, the Data Cookbook allows anyone to see what reports have been created and validated. This becomes a simple copy of a report through collaboration vs a complete new build of a report or dashboard and gets the University to more harmonious work.
- Training and Sharing with Team Members: Once an item is documented it can be shared with any student, faculty or staff at the university so they understand the intended purpose of the report and have clear definitions of the data fields utilized (i.e. what is the BIPOC calculation again? What does started app mean in this report?, etc.).
- Saving Time on Recreating a Report: You make a quick report to answer this one question thinking that it will never be asked again, then a summer goes by and you are asked for updated data. Now you find yourself trying to figure out why you did what you did, and waste time trying to rebuild a "quick" report. Sound familiar? The Data Cookbook allows you to capture all the details when originally creating the report and keep them on hand in case they are asked for again!
- Change to Data Field: The Data Cookbook tracks every field utilized within a report or dashboard. That way, if a data field changes you can easily figure out which reports need to be updated to ensure correct data!
- Knowledge Transfer: In the terrible event your main report writer leaves the university all of their documentation will be available to all on the team and the knowledge doesn't leave with the person, causing a team to start from square one!
The expectation of a Salesforce Report Writer is that for every saved report, list, data item, table, dashboard, etc. within Salesforce EDA there is a Data Cookbook specification associated with it!
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