How to Audit Salesforce Reports and Dashboards

Salesforce teams often accumulate hundreds or thousands of reports, but there is no single screen that answers every cleanup question. A reliable report audit usually combines folder review, metadata, subscriptions, ownership, dashboard dependencies, runtime checks, and business context.

The old phrase “report on reports” can be useful shorthand, but it can also create a false expectation. Salesforce admins can inspect report and dashboard information through several methods. No one method proves ownership, usage, dependencies, folder access, subscriptions, and business value by itself.

Define what you are trying to learn

Before choosing a tool, define the question. Different methods answer different questions.

• Metadata visibility: What is the report definition, report type, filters, folder, and dashboard relationship?
• Runtime visibility: What happens when the report is run, exported, filtered, or subscribed to?
• Usage evidence: What signs suggest a report is or is not being used?
• Ownership: Who created it, owns it, maintains it, or depends on it?
• Folder access: Who can see it?
• Subscription data: Who receives scheduled report or dashboard email?
• Dashboard dependency: Which dashboards rely on which source reports?

Do not promise that a standard “report on reports” answers all of these at once.

Inventory report and dashboard folders

Start in the Reports and Dashboards tabs. Folder review is still useful because it shows how the business organizes reporting, who has access, and where old copies collect.

• List report folders and dashboard folders.
• Note folder owners, sharing, business unit, and naming patterns.
• Identify personal folders that may contain important one-off reports.
• Separate production dashboards from scratch work and old variants.

Folder access matters because a report can be useful to one team and invisible to another.

Identify report owners

Created By and Last Modified By fields can help, but they do not always identify the real business owner. The person who built the report may not be the person who depends on it now.

For each cleanup candidate, record:

• Report or dashboard name.
• Folder.
• Created By and Last Modified By.
• Business owner or team.
• Decision the report supports.
• Whether it appears in a dashboard, subscription, meeting, export, or process handoff.

Review subscriptions and scheduled delivery

Subscriptions are useful evidence because they show scheduled delivery, but they are not perfect. A report may be subscribed to and ignored, or manually run during a monthly process without any subscription.

• Review report subscriptions and dashboard subscriptions where your permissions allow it.
• Check scheduled delivery cadence and recipients.
• Confirm whether the recipients still need the report.
• Look for reports emailed to inactive users or old distribution patterns.

Subscription review is especially important before archiving reports that executives, finance, operations, or sales leaders receive on a schedule.

Trace dashboards to source reports

A report can look unused in isolation while still powering a dashboard. Before archiving a report, check whether it is used as a dashboard source report or referenced by a dashboard component.

Dashboard dependency review should include:

• Dashboard name and folder.
• Component title.
• Source report.
• Dashboard owner.
• Audience and business cadence.

Related project example: pipeline target rollups.

Review filters and report types

Report metadata can show the report type, filters, columns, groupings, and other definition details. That is useful for finding stale variants, broken assumptions, and reports based on custom report types nobody maintains.

• Check whether filters still match the current sales or service process.
• Review custom report types with no clear owner.
• Look for old picklist values, retired stages, inactive users, or legacy record types in filters.
• Identify duplicate reports that differ only by date range, owner, or one filter.

For dashboard-quality cleanup, see how to create Salesforce dashboards that drive action.

Evaluate usage evidence carefully

Last-run information is a clue, not a verdict. A report that has not been run recently may still support quarterly close, annual planning, audits, board reporting, compensation, renewals, or exception handling.

Usage evidence can include:

• Last run or last viewed signals where available.
• Subscriptions and scheduled delivery.
• Dashboard component dependencies.
• Exports or API usage if tracked in the org.
• Event Monitoring or audit data where licensed and configured.
• Business-owner confirmation.

Do not claim that last-run date alone proves a report is unnecessary.

Know what each method can and cannot tell you

Separate unused from business-critical

Use a review queue instead of immediate deletion. Group reports into retain, consolidate, archive, rewrite, or investigate.

• Retain: trusted, owned, and tied to a current process.
• Consolidate: duplicate reports where one version can become the source of truth.
• Archive: likely stale, but safe to move before deletion.
• Rewrite: important purpose, weak filters or broken assumptions.
• Investigate: unclear owner, subscription, dashboard dependency, or audit purpose.

Identify duplicates and stale variants

Duplicates usually appear when each team copies a report and changes one filter. That can be fine, but it often creates conflicting numbers. Look for nearly identical names, same report type, same core filters, and folders where every team has its own version.

The fix is not always deletion. Sometimes the fix is a trusted dashboard, clearer folder structure, standard filters, and a note explaining which report is the source of truth.

Document report purpose and ownership

Every report worth keeping should have a short purpose. Who uses it? What decision does it support? What fields must stay trustworthy? Who owns follow-up when the number looks wrong?

This is where report cleanup connects to consulting work. A dashboard only drives action when the business agrees on the fields, filters, definitions, owners, and cadence behind it. If that is the real problem, my Salesforce reporting and cleanup services may be the next step.

Create an archive or retirement process

For reports that look stale, create a staged process:

1. Move the report to an archive folder or mark it as pending retirement.
2. Notify the folder owner or business group.
3. Wait through the relevant business cycle if the report may be seasonal.
4. Confirm no dashboard, subscription, export, or business review depends on it.
5. Delete only after approval and documentation.

Report and dashboard audit checklist