Skinny Tables

Question 1

What are skinny tables?

Answer 1

Created by Salesforce only, and it contains frequently used fields to help avoid joins. Please note: “Join” in this case means joining the standard and custom fields of an object, not joining between different objects.

Question 2

Why create a skinny table?

Answer 2

Salesforce maintains other, separate tables at the database level for standard and custom fields. This separation requires a join when a query contains both kinds of fields. A skinny table contains both kinds of fields.

Question 3

Does Skinny Tables have soft deleted records?

Answer 3

No.

Question 4

When are skinny tables most useful?

Answer 4

When your tables contain millions of records and you want to improve the performance of read-only operations, such as reports

Question 5

How can you improve the performance of reports if your object contains millions of records?

Answer 5

Contact Salesforce Customer Support to create a skinny table.

Question 6

How could a skinny table cause problems?

Answer 6

There’s overhead in maintaining separate tables that hold copies of live data. Using them in an inappropriate context can lead to performance degradation instead of improvement.

Question 7

On which objects can you create skinny tables?

Answer 7

Custom objects, 
Account, 
Contact, 
Opportunity, 
Lead 
and Case

Question 8

What does skinny tables primarily enhance?

Answer 8

Performance for:

• reports
• list views
• SOQL

Question 9

Which fields can be included on Skinny tables

Answer 9

• Checkbox
• Date and Date/Time
• Email
• Number
• Percent
• Phone
• Picklist (multi-select)
• Text (including text area, and text area long)
• URL

Question 10

Can skinny tables or skinny indexes include encrypted data?

Answer 10

Yes

Question 11

Provide an example of how an annual or year-to-date report can be improved using skinny tables

Answer 11

Instead of using a date range like 01/01/18 to 12/31/18, use a skinny table to include a Year field and filter on Year =’2018’

Question 12

What is the maximum number of columns for a skinny table?

Answer 12

100

Question 13

Can skinny tables include fields across related objects?

Answer 13

No

Question 14

Are skinny tables copied to all sandbox environments?

Answer 14

No, only to full sandboxes (as of Summer 2015)

Question 15

Which fields cannot be included on Skinny tables

Answer 15

Formula Fields
Fields derived from other objects (aka lookup)
Large CLOB fields

Question 16

What’s an advantage to using skinny tables?

Answer 16

Skinny tables speed up query performance with large data volumes

Question 17

Are Picklist fields available on Skinny Tables?

Answer 17

Yes

Question 18

Are Lookup fields available on Skinny Tables?

Answer 18

No

Question 19

Are Formula fields available on Skinny Tables?

Answer 19

No

Question 20

Are Text Area (long) fields available on Skinny Tables?

Answer 20

Yes

Question 21

Can Sinny tables contain fields from other objects?

Answer 21

No