Bucket fields support exactly three source field types: Picklist, Text, and Number (including Currency and Percent). Other types — Date, Datetime, Checkbox, Reference (Lookup) — are not supported as bucket sources.
The three supported types
| Field type | Bucket behaviour |
|---|---|
| Picklist | Group existing picklist values into custom buckets |
| Text | Match by value(s) — “starts with” / “contains” / exact list |
| Number / Currency / Percent | Define numeric range thresholds |
Picklist example
Industry picklist has 30 values. You want to roll up into 4 verticals:
Bucket: Vertical
"Industrial / Tech" ← Hardware, Software, Manufacturing, Technology
"Life Sciences" ← Healthcare, Pharma, Biotech
"Financial" ← Banking, Insurance, Financial Services
"Other" ← (everything else)Text example
Account Name field — you want to bucket by “named accounts”:
Bucket: Account Tier
"Strategic" ← name contains "Acme", "Globex", "Initech", "Umbrella"
"Mid-market" ← name starts with "Mid-"
"Other" ← (default)Number example
Opportunity Amount — three deal-size tiers:
Bucket: Deal Size
"Small" ← Amount < 10,000
"Medium" ← Amount >= 10,000 AND < 100,000
"Large" ← Amount >= 100,000Why date isn’t supported
Date and Datetime have built-in grouping options in the Report Builder — you can group by Day, Week, Month, Quarter, Fiscal Year, Calendar Year. Bucketing would duplicate that capability. If you need custom date ranges (Q1 vs Q2 vs Q3), use a formula field on the object, or rely on the standard date groupings.
Why Lookup / Reference isn’t supported
A Lookup field’s value is an Id, which isn’t a category in itself. To bucket “by Account”, you’d use a related field on the Account (Account.Industry, Account.Type) — and those are picklists or text, which are bucket-able.
Other unsupported
| Field type | Why not |
|---|---|
| Checkbox | Only two values — use IF(IsActive, 'Active', 'Inactive') directly |
| Multi-select picklist | The bucket builder can’t handle multi-value cells |
| Geolocation / Address compound | Not categorical in a meaningful way |
| Encrypted text | Can’t read values to bucket on |
| Formula text/number | Yes — formula text is treated as text, formula number as number |
Bucket field limits
- 5 bucket fields per report
- 20 categories per bucket
- 400 values per category (when bucketing picklists/text)
- Bucket fields are local to the report — not reusable, not exposed in SOQL
Common follow-ups
- Can I bucket Created Date? — No. Use date groupings (group by Month / Quarter / Year) instead.
- Can a formula field be bucketed? — Yes, if its result type is text, number, or picklist-style.
- Bucket per report limit? — 5.
Verified against: Salesforce Help — Bucket Fields. Last reviewed 2026-05-17 for Spring ‘26.