This is to solve for the problem of creating a report on time between two dates.
When creating reports, I’d love to be able to connect a start and end date property to see a visualisation of how the time period between them stretches across dates.
The example mockup shows a report over time periods that visually connects two dates. Extra points if the report can handle “earliest” and “latest” date properties if you group dates on a object; eg. several service contracts associated to a company can show on a custom report under one company label.
The closest I can find right now would be to use a bar chart and add a “duration” type measurement for the start date, which doesn’t fit the purpose as doesn’t clearly show overlap or end dates.
Some objects, like deals, has the Gannt view, but is not applicable as a solution here as I’ve not found a way to pick which date properties to show nor how to use the Gantt view as a report (embedd on dashboard works, but not add as a report card on a view tab).
The use cases where I’d recently have been looking to use this type of report are:
- To visualise how service contracts (custom object) stretch across time periods; either associated to one company or another filtering criteria - Using the build in projects object means duplicating already existing information and shuffling it into not entirely fitting categories and isn’t something you can embedd as a report card to a tab on a view. The property data tracker card only works on the object; not associated objects.
- To view start/end dates on Deals (standard object) for portals without access to custom objects where the deal pipeline functions to monitor the status of subscriptions - The Gannt view in the deals overview shows create and close date; I’ve not found a way to switch it. Not embeddable as a card on the Company view tab.
Suggested solution:
- A basic report functionality on a object level that allows you to use two date properties to show the time between two dates visually. You should be able to choose how dates are displayed: daily, monthly, weekly, quarterly, yearly.
- Enhanced report functionality in the custom report builder to group object dates by another object. For example to show total “coverage” of service contracts against companies that meet the filter criteria summarised as start & end date and not as separate items/rows for each contract.
