No matter what the user interface, Classic or Lightning Experience, the backend database is the same. You will see the same data in Classic or in Lightning Experience, or even from the Salesforce1 Mobile App. All reports and dashboards which can be built are based on the object model implemented in your Salesforce organization, from objects relationship, down to the field type level. It's crucial for you to know this as a basis, before learning to build advance reports and dashboards.

This section will discuss the object model in Salesforce. Objects are a key component in Salesforce. They allow you to store your data. Similar to a table in the database, an object comprises several fields to store data. You can set some fields as mandatory, while some other fields will be automatically populated by the system, such as ID, Created Date, Created By, Last Modified Date, and Last Modified By.

You can illustrate an object as a table, field as a column in the table, and record as a row in the table. In the following table, field 1 will store values for all first names, field 2 for birth date, and so on:

There are two types of objects in Salesforce:

• Standard objects
• Custom objects

Standard objects are provided by default when you subscribe for Salesforce; this is dependent on the cloud type you subscribe to. Each object has its own uniqueness for specific functions, and the objects have built-in relationships to each other. Here are a few main standard objects when you subscribe to Sales and Service Cloud:

• Account: Account is used to store information about the businesses and organizations your company interacts with
• Contact: Contacts store information about the people that you work with--prospects, customers, or suppliers
• Opportunity: Opportunity is used to store information about sales interactions with your customers; this is often known as the Sales Cycle
• Lead: Lead is to store information about people who might become customers or partners of your company
• Case: Case stores information about interactions with your customers related to the products or services you provide
• Campaign: Campaign stores information about your company's marketing activities and responses

Some other standard objects are Activity, Asset, Contract, Quote, Order, Products, and Price Book.

Each standard object comes with default fields based on the purpose of the object, for example, Stage in Opportunity, Mobile Phone in Contact, and so on. You can create your own fields in the Standard object; this is called as custom field. The maximum number of fields you can create depends on the Salesforce edition you subscribe to.

Custom objects are objects created within an organization to store data specific to that organization's business, and which cannot be stored using standard objects. Only users with admin access can create a custom object. Most AppExchange packages create and use custom objects, since they provide specific business processes. Just like standard objects, custom objects are used to store specific data in Salesforce.

A limited number of custom objects can be created depending on the Salesforce edition you subscribe to. If you have admin permission, you can create objects and fields in Salesforce with just Point and Click rather than complex SQL scripts as in the traditional database.

In a standard object, the standard fields available depend on the object, but each custom object comes with the following few standard fields, which is the same for all custom objects:

• ID
• Name
• Created By and Created Date
• Last Modified By and Last Modified Date
• Owner (if the object is not a child of other objects in Master-Detail Relationship)

Just as with Standard objects, you can create custom fields in a custom object.

You can relate an object to other objects in Salesforce. For example, relating a custom object Expense to custom object Project. With this relation, you'll know which expense record is used for which project. Project, in this example, will be considered as the parent object, and Expense as a child object. From the record-level perspective, one parent can have many children, while the child can only have one parent. To build this relationship from the child object, create a Lookup Relationship or Master-Detail Relationship field to the parent object.

There are three types of object relationships in Salesforce, which are as follows:

• Master-Detail Relationship
• Lookup Relationship
• Hierarchical Relationship

The following table compares the Master-Detail Relationship and Lookup Relationship:

Hierarchical Relationship is a special Lookup relationship available for the user object only. It lets users use a lookup field to associate one user with another, which does not directly or indirectly refer to itself. For example, you can create a custom Hierarchical Relationship field to store each user's reporting manager.

Salesforce provides various data types to fit your business model. Some of them are built with business logic, for example, emails have to follow a valid e-mail format, and URLs have to follow a valid URL format; an invalid value will be auto rejected by the system. For each data type, you can determine additional options to specify including Required, Unique, Case sensitive, External ID, and Default Value.

Here is a list of the Salesforce data types:

• Auto Number
• Formula
• Roll-Up Summary if an object is the parent in Master-Detail Relationship
• Hierarchical relationship--only for a User object
• Lookup Relationship
• Master-Detail Relationship
• Checkbox
• Currency
• Date
• Date/Time
• Email
• Geolocation
• Number
• Percent
• Phone
• Picklist
• Picklist (Multi-Select)
• Text
• Text Area
• Text Area (Long)
• Text Area (Rich)
• Text (Encrypted)
• URL