Configure Aliases in Reports

Introduction

This article will walk you through how to rename or customize your labels in the chart visualizations, to make them more contextual to the target audience. For example, when you are sharing a report to your director, and your director may not be aware of the jargon used in the report, to make charts/reports more contextual, you can rename labels in the reports.

Aliases can be configured only for the following data types:

• String
• Picklist
• Boolean

Configure Aliases

To configure Aliases in Reports:

1. Navigate to Administration > Report Builder > + REPORT.
2. Select an object from the dropdown list.
3. Add the required fields to Show me, and By.
4. Click Select Visualization Type and choose the required chart visualization, and run the report.

Notes:

• You can configure Aliases only after you RUN the report.
• You cannot apply Pivot on the reports in which the labels are already configured with Aliases.

5. Click the gear icon on the By field.
6. Click CONFIGURE ALIASES. The Edit Aliases dialog-box is displayed.
7. Enter the Alias Name you would like to assign for a value.

Notes:

• You can enter a maximum of 40 characters in the Alias Name.
• You cannot configure/enter the original and duplicate values in the Aliases.

8. Click UPDATE and Run the report to see the Alias Names assigned in the previous step.

Note: Configuring aliases will not have any impact on your original data.

After configuring Aliases, in the chart area, on hover, you can see both aliased and original names.

• Aliased <Name>: Aliased value
• Original <Name>: Original value

Post Configuration of Aliases 

Visualizations

1. You can change the visualization type and still the Aliases persists.

2. You can see the aliased data in the table visualization. But, you will not be able to search and sort the Aliased column.

Drill Down Reports

Aliased values are persisted and shown in drill down reports upon clicking the visualizations.

Success Snapshot and Dashboard exports: Aliased values are persisted in both Table reports and charts.

Custom Colors: Custom colors applied on original data are not impacted by Aliases.

Dashboard External Sharing: Aliased values persists on both normal and shared dashboards.

Limitations 

• Aliases cannot be configured for the reports enabled with Pivot.
• Aliases can only be configured for fields with 30 or less distinct values.
• In a report, for a field, you can configure a maximum of 30 aliases.
• Ranking is disabled for aliased labels (fields).
• All Filters, including Global Filters work on the original values.
• CSV exports the original data and will not persisit the aliased values.