How to create a report in SugarCRM: The complete guide

If you’re a Sugar user, creating reports is a powerful way to gain insight into your customer data. From sales pipelines to email marketing lists, the reports function in Sugar offers robust tools to generate custom reports based on your specific needs.

In this blog, we will guide you through the steps to creating a report, the different report types and the top tips for best practices.

Before you start following along, it’s important to make sure you have the permissions to access the modules you need to report on. If certain options are restricted, you’ll need to ask your system administrator to allow access to you or your team.

Navigate to the Reports module

On the left-hand side of Sugar, select the ‘Reports’ module from the menu. Once opened, you’ll be able to access other team member’s reports and see the last time the report was run.

To create a new report from scratch, click ‘Create’.

Choose your report type

Sugar displays four standard report options to choose from. Depending on the type of report you’re creating, your choice may vary.

Rows and Columns Report – This report type is the most simple of them all. It is essentially a big Excel spreadsheet displaying the chosen fields. This option is great for marketing target lists to gather a group of customers from a specific location or industry for example.

Summation Report – A summation report displays a vibrant chart with grouped totals on the bottom. This could be used for sales and opportunity pipelines – perfect for those who prefer a more visual layout. Plus, you have the option to choose different chart formats (pie, treemap, funnel etc).

Summation with Details Report – A more enhanced version of a Summation Report. This report type displays the chart at the top of the view and grouped details at the bottom

Matrix Report – A matrix report is essentially a table of summed data, great for reporting on numbers/figures and generating a grand total.

Top Tip: It’s easier to report on dropdown and multi select fields. Text area fields can be reported on but the text used must be exactly the same on each instance for the report to recognise that they’re grouped. So, if you’re a system admin, making your fields dropdowns and multi selects will make it easier to report on your data.

Select a module

After you’ve selected your report type, a selection of Sugar modules will appear. Choose the module you want to report on. For example, if you want to report on the status of your leads, you would choose the Leads module. Or, if you wanted to create a target list for companies/accounts in a specific location, you would choose the Accounts module.

Define your filters and conditions

This is where things start to look a little complicated for a Sugar newbie. But don’t worry, mastering Sugar reports comes with practice. No matter which of the four report types you choose, defining your filters is always the first step.

Let’s say you want to create a Rows and Columns target list for Leads who have come from your website, under your Leads Fields, you would select Lead Source. Then, you would select “is” “website”. This will filter out the leads who have come from anywhere else.

Top Tip: The Run time checkbox is more effective than it seems. If you tick the run time checkbox, you can change the filters without having to go back in and edit the report. So, after you’ve saved the report, you’ll have the option to change the filters.

Now this is where things start to get a bit different depending on the report type you’ve chosen. So, let’s go through them one by one, and the different steps that will follow.

Rows and Column Report Next Steps

Select your display fields

If you’re creating a basic Rows and Columns report, the next step after choosing your filters is to select your display fields. This is when you tell Sugar what fields you want to see in your report.

If you’re creating a marketing target list, you’ll want to see an account/customer name and an email address.

Save and run your report

After the first three steps, you’re ready to name and save your rows and column report. Before you press ‘save and run’, the preview option is a great way to double check if the data has pulled through correctly.

Once you save, you’ll be able to see your report in the form of a list, with your chosen display fields as columns. If you ticked the run time box, you’ll be able to see the filter options on the right-hand side ready to be edited.

Summation and Matrix Report Next Steps

Define group by

Summation and Matrix reports have the same steps, just different layouts. After you’ve selected your filters and conditions, the next step is to define your group.

Depending on the type of report you’re running, this step highlights how you want to group your data. Do you want to see sales by user to analyse how many leads your team members have converted? Or, do you want to group your opportunities by expected close date? B2C companies could also group their data by products to compare product performance.

Choose your display summary

This is where the numbers come in. Whether it’s an average, a minimum or maximum, or a basic sum, you need to tell Sugar’s reporting wizard how you want to display the values.

Perhaps you want to see your average rating score for your customer service team. Or you might want to simply count how many cases you had per month.

Select a chart layout

The reporting wizard provides plenty of vibrant chart layouts to choose from. This includes pie charts, bar charts (horizontal and vertical) and colourful treemaps (our personal favourite). If you’re not sure which chart to choose for your specific report, the preview feature is great for testing different displays.