<p>Getting the right date filters so that you get the right information in a report can be tricky business. Here's a few tips:</p> <p>1) <strong>Decide exactly what the question is.</strong></p> <p>For example: When you say you want to know about the # of connections in 2011, what exactly are you asking?</p> <ul><li>How many connections were made during 2011?</li> <li>How many connections took place during 2011?</li> </ul> <p>Notice those are very different questions. If someone signed up for an occurrence that takes place in January 2011, but they signed up in December 2010 then you're going to get different answers depending on the date you filter by.</p> <ul><li>If you want to know how many people signed up (made a connection) in 2011, then the Connection Created Date is what to filter on.</li> <li>If you want to know how many connections took place during 2011, then the Connection &quot;Start Date and Time&quot; is the relevant date.</li> </ul> <p>2) <strong>Decide which object really has the dates you want to use.</strong></p> <p>The most reliable record types for date information are either Connections or Occurrences. There are a lot of date fields in the volunteer opportunity record, but its when the OCCURRENCE took place that's probably relevant. And for individuals (volunteers), the Connection record is the right place to go. Be careful that you select the right date field that most clearly answers the question you want to answer in the report.</p>

<p>Salesforce comes with a number of <strong>Standard Objects </strong>that are part of of Salesforce. However Salesforce also allows you to create <strong>Custom Objects</strong></p> <p>The HandsOn Connect Application adds a large number of custom objects to Salesforce.</p>

<p>The Salesforce practice of 'cloning' records seems like a great time-saver. There is a strong temptation to clone volunteer opportunities to create similar ones, or to make changes to volunteer opportunity fields that cannot be changed after an opportunity has been created (like Project / Activity, Scheduling type of the volunteer opportunity, etc.). But cloning can actually create more problems than it solves, and we don't recommend cloning records except in very limited use cases.</p> <p>We particularly caution you against cloning any records that have:</p> <p>1) Lookups to other objects</p> <p>2) Are normally created by the public site or via the connection grid in the occurrence object</p> <p>3) Are created on behalf of partner organizations. </p> <p>Here's some of the reasons why.</p>