Salesforce: Extract Fields using Report

As a Salesforce admin, sometimes we need to extract the list of all fields from an or multiple objects, for audit, clean-up, documentation, checking, and so on. 

In Classic, we can simply copy and paste the fields list to an Excel file, but in Lightning, it is not so easy when you have lots of fields in an object. What is the alternative?

• Use 3rd party app, such as Field Footprint, Field Trip, Config Workbook, Salesforce Inspector.
• Report, yes we can run a Salesforce report on objects and fields.  

This blog will discuss how to create Salesforce reports to get the list of objects and fields.

1. Create a Report type

Select the Primary Object = Entity Definitions, then relate to Field Definitions. Deploy it if you want to share the report with your users.

2. Create a Report

Create a new report as normal, use the report type created in (1), and of course as per normal Salesforce report, you can export the report to an Excel file.

In the screenshot below, I want to get all fields from the Opportunity object, add a filter to the report Master Label = Opportunity. make sure the Master Label in the filter is from Entity Definitions, not from Field Definitions.

Few interesting information of field can be gathered here:

- Relationship Name: what object does the field refer to

- Calculated Formula Field References: list of all fields used in the formula 

You also can add Description, Last Modified Date, if the field is sortable, filterable, calculated,  indexed, etc.

One of the drawbacks of using a report to get fields in the object, if your Profile does not have access to the field (Field-Level Security), you will not see those fields in the report.