How do you build effective pipeline reports and use Opportunity History in Sales Cloud?

Pipeline Reports are typically Summary reports on the Opportunity object grouped by Stage, Close Date (month/quarter), Owner, or Account. Key fields: Amount, Expected Revenue (amount × probability), Forecast Category, Age, and Number of Days in Stage. A Pipeline Trend report using the Opportunity History report type shows how pipeline has changed over time — it captures a snapshot of key field values (Amount, Stage, Close Date, Probability) each time they change, enabling analysis of how deals have been updated, pushed, or pulled forward. Best practice: use Opportunity Forecast report type to see amounts by forecast category. For dashboards: a funnel chart of count of opportunities by stage and a metric showing total pipeline by close quarter are standard for sales leadership. The Opportunity History object must be enabled to preserve field change history for trending analysis.