A table is one of the components that you can add to a Dashboard. It is not that much used, as Dashboards are intended to be “Graphical”. I had a requirement to add a table that displays 3 columns to a dashboard. First, I thought that should be easy, just do the report, then add a table to  dashboard with the created report as a source. I was wrong, as it is not that straight forward. Let me explain how I did it:

The table in the dashboard should display the top 10 Closed (Booked) opportunities with these columns: Account Name, Opportunity Name and Amount.

First, I created a standard report with the appropriate filter(s), that had the 3 columns I wanted listed in the dashboard:

 

Now, Let us try to add this report as a source to a table in a dashboard. Go to the Dashboard, add the Table component, and the Source report. Note the error we get! We need to add groupings in the report in order to be a valid source report to this Dashboard table component.

            

Now, let us try to add the Grouping and Summary to the report:

• Account Name Group
• Opportunity Name Group
• Summarize by the Amount field (Sum)

We will get the 2 Groupings and the 1 Summary in the source report:

 

Back in the Dashboard:

Note: the default columns displayed were the first Grouping and the first Number (Amount) because we summarized this column (Sum).

 

Back in the source report, if we switch the Grouping and we remove the Summarized Amount field, we get the first Grouping and the first Number field (the default one is the Record Count):

      

So, the way to customize the columns to be displayed in a dashboard table is to add the Groupings and Number fields, and add a chart. Let’s do it!

In the source report, let’s revert to the first Grouping and Number field (Summarized by Amount).

And let’s add a “Vertical Bar chart”:

• The Y Axis displays the Number fields we can use: in this case Sum of Amount and Record Count. Choose “Sum of Amount”.
• The X Axis displays the Groupings: “Account Name” and “Opportunity Name”. Choose “Account Name”.
• The “Group By” lets you choose another Grouping
• The “Plot Additional Value” let’s you choose another Number

In our case, we have another Grouping by, so we choose “Group By”, and select “Opportunity Name”

 

Now, back to the Dashboard, let’s add a table component, and the source report:

Click on Wrench to customize the report, then click on “Customize Table” and choose the columns!

Finally, to limit the number of records to 10, and sort by the Amount:

Note, if you want to add another number to the Dashboard table, add the number component to the “Plot Additional Value” part of the source report chart:

 

 

That’s it ! 🙂

Note: check this Salesforce.com Knowledge Article Number 000003933 for some more details.