A Matrix Report groups data by both rows and columns — a pivot table inside Salesforce. Pick it when you need to see one metric cross-tabbed across two dimensions, like region × product, owner × stage, or month × type.
What it looks like
Hardware Software Services Total
APAC $500K $200K $100K $800K
EMEA $400K $700K $300K $1.4M
AMER $300K $750K $450K $1.5M
Total $1.2M $1.65M $850K $3.7MRows: Region. Columns: Product Family. Each cell: Sum of Amount for that combination.
When to use Matrix
- Comparison across two dimensions — “won deals by month and product”
- Pivot analysis — anything you’d build a pivot table for in Excel
- Heat maps — combined with conditional highlighting
- Side-by-side trend — owner × quarter
How to build one
- Start a Summary report — add a row grouping
- Toggle the report format to Matrix
- Drag a field to Columns → Group Columns
- Pick a numeric summary (Sum, Count, Avg)
- Save and run
Grouping limits
- Up to 2 row groupings + 2 column groupings = 4 total dimensions
- Common in practice: 1 row × 1 column
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
Region: APAC
Hardware $100K $120K $150K $130K
Software $50K $60K $80K $70K
Region: EMEA
Hardware $200K $210K $230K $240K
Software $300K $320K $360K $400KMatrix on dashboards
Matrix reports feed:
- Stacked bar / column charts (one dimension as series)
- Grouped bar / column (one dimension grouped, the other as series)
- Heat map tables
- Lightning Table with column groupings
Strengths and limits
| Strength | Limit |
|---|---|
| Two-dimensional analysis natively | More expensive to compute than Summary |
| Built-in heat-map vibes | Cell-level conditional highlighting only |
| Supports summary formulas at row, column, and grand-total levels | Cannot drill into individual records easily — drill happens at the cell |
| Sortable by grand totals | Harder to read on small screens |
Performance
Matrix reports run slower than Summary because they aggregate across two dimensions. For tables with millions of rows, push high-cardinality dimensions to columns sparingly — 10 columns × 10 rows = 100 cells is fine; 200 columns × 100 rows = 20,000 cells is not.
Matrix vs Summary in two lines
- Summary groups rows only.
- Matrix groups rows and columns.
Same source, different shape.
Common follow-ups
- Maximum groupings in Matrix? — 2 row + 2 column = 4 total.
- Can I switch a Matrix back to Summary? — Yes, in the Lightning Report Builder.
- Why is my Matrix slow? — Too many distinct column values. Filter or bucket them down.
Verified against: Salesforce Help — Matrix Reports. Last reviewed 2026-05-17 for Spring ‘26.