Reporting and Dashboards Best Practices

Salesforce.com

Best Practice

Business Driver

Best Practice Overview

Additional Information

– Salesforce Editions

– Alternative Options

– Skill Level Required

– Prerequisites

– Links and References

Business Driver

All organizations buy a CRM tool to derive clear

quantitative metrics on their business. Good Reporting

and Dashboards help organisations to present data

stored within the CRM solution in a manor that allows

executives to manage from the system and end users

to use their data in a meaningful and productive manor.

Best Practice Overview

This best practice is divided into two components being

reporting and dashboards. This best practice is aimed

at both new users and then expands on the base line to

cover more advanced techniques.

Reporting and Dashboards Best Practice

Would You Drive at Night Without Headlights?

Understand how Reports and

Dashboards can help you

monitor business goals &

performance

Understand how Dashboards

can be used to motivate and

promote success

Walk away with specific

deployment tips and tricks

Overview - What Can You Report On?

The information you see in reports is only the data to which

you have access, including…

– …Records you own,

– …Records to which you have read or read/write access,

– …Records that have been shared with you,

– …Records owned by or shared with users in roles below you in the

hierarchy,

– …Records for which you have "read" permissions

– In addition, you can view only those fields that are visible to you

In general, if you can see it, you can report on it.

Where to start?

Out-of-the-Box Reports - Standard reports across all objects that should be the basis for your custom reports

– Account and Contact Reports

– Opportunity Reports

– Sales Reports

– Lead Reports

– Support Reports

– Campaign Reports

– Administrative Reports

– Activity Reports

– Product and Asset Reports

Custom Report Wizard – 6 easy steps

– Predefined reports

Reports Types and Uses Tabular

– Tabular reports are the simplest and fastest way to list your data.

– Quick Lists w/out summarization.

Summary

– Summary reports list your data with subtotals and other summary information.

– Avg Sales per Rep, Total $ Oppty’s

Matrix

– Matrix reports list summaries of your data in a grid against both horizontal and vertical criteria.

– Sales per Rep per FY by FQ.

Reports—Creating Custom Reports

2. Select report type

3. Select columns to summarize

and define custom formulas4. Select Grouping

1. Select data source

Custom objects too!

Predefined Relationships between objects

FY and then by FQAcct and then sub-acct

Sales Manager and then RepRecord Counts, Avg., Highs/Lows

Reports—Creating Custom Reports

5. Select fields (columns)

to include 6. Order the fields (columns)

7. Set filter criteria 8. Create chart

Custom fields located

towards the bottom.

Don’t forget dynamic

date filters!

Save for last.

“and” = Default filter. Use advanced filters link and “()” to create “or” filters

Reporting Usage Tips

Role Hierarchies Run time customisations

Hide DetailsHide Details

Reporting – Advanced Options

Advanced Filtering Charting and Graphs

Conditional HighlightingOpportunity Trends

Exporting and Printing

Use Printable View to preserve sections and formatting

– Display the report in a print-ready format in Excel

Use Export to Excel to export directly to an Excel

spreadsheet

– File format: either .xls or .csv

– Export up to 256 columns and 65,536 rows of data in one

report.

Reports - Best Practices

Canned reports (most commonly used, starting point for

customizing)

– Train users to understand the difference between SAVE and SAVE AS

Create/manage report folders and access

– Develop folder & report naming conventions

• Regional Sales Report Folder

– SE Pipeline, US Marketing, EMEA Lead Gen, etc.

Save your reports as your browser “Favorites”

Review Tips and Hints for Custom Reports and

Maximizing Report Performance cheat sheet

Reporting Tips

If you are thinking a report may end up on a dashboard,

always select Summary or Matrix report

Archive old reports – run “Report on Reports”

Office Edition – Run reports from Excel

Leads & Contact reports – Add to Campaign

Avoid Custom Dates, use generic ranges, such as last

30 days, Current FY

Turn the lights on with Dashboards!

Why Dashboards?

Allows users to consume large amounts of information in a

simple, graphical view

Enables management to monitor key performance indicators

company-wide

Enables users to standardize on one common language…one

version of the truth

Great for driving specific behavior

Critical for driving executive support for salesforce.com

Dashboard Basics

Based on custom reports

20 elements per dashboard

Click to drill into underlying

report

Can be refreshed anytime

Results based on

Running User

Data has to be there to report on it.

Field created, info entered. Reports

only as good as the data they are

based on.

The Components

1. Chart

– Pie, Line, Vertical or Horizontal

ex. Stacked or Side by Side

2. Table

– Sort by label or value with max values displayed

ex. Leaderboard/Top Reps

3. Metric

– Stackable with colors

ex. Compare multiple reports

4. Gauge

– Custom breakpoints and colors

ex. Quota or Goal attainment

Common MetricsSales Metrics

Number of prospects

Number of new customers and total revenue

Number of existing customers and total revenue

Top 10 open opportunities

Revenue target for quarter or year

Top Accounts

Pipeline by Stage

Pipeline by Owner

Exceptions - (i.e.Open Opportunities despite a past close date)

Bookings trends – month to month

Average age of closed opportunities by Sales Rep

Opportunities by lead source

Customer Support Metrics

Number of Cases closed same day

Number of Cases open/closed by agent

Average number of case by type

Average time to resolution

Top solutions created by rep

op solutions as rated in knowledge base

Percentage compliance with service-level agreement

Percentage of service renewals

Case time open-to-resolution

Marketing Metrics

Number of executed campaigns

Number of responses by campaign

Number of opportunities won by campaign

Revenue generated by campaign

ROI by Campaign

# of Respondents per campaign

Number of new customers acquired by campaign

Number of new leads by campaign

Number of leads by lead source

Dashboards - Where Do I Begin? Survey management and your top users

– determine the most effective use of dashboards

Executive Level - Start at the Top!

- what information does your CEO, VP Sales, VP Marketing, VP Support, etc. need to effectively run the business? What behaviour do they want to drive?

Work with your salesforce.com users

– what information do they need that would make their everyday lives easier? Prospecting information? Lead age information?

HINT: Use the application to view usage such as login usage

– you can target these users for your focus group

Map the end-results analysis to the application

Can the current configuration support the analysis needs?

- you may need to reconfigure salesforce/ add custom fields

Designing for Successful Analysis

Work backwards - (re)configure salesforce.com to match

the reporting needs

Create new custom fields, make certain fields required

on page layouts to drive consistency

Calculated fields can help with a great deal of reporting

needs

Use reports and dashboards to help drive data

consistency as part of the data cleanup process –

Example: create a dashboard that lists ‘All Accounts

without Industry

The Mechanics of Reports/Dashboards

• Track individual records• Create associations between records• Search across all records

• Sort and organize• Segment and summarize

• Graphical depiction• Up to 20 elements per page

Dashboards

Reports

Records

Updated Real-Time

Click to Drill-Down

Dashboard - Best Practices

Setting Up

– Identify users who will have “Manage Dashboards” permission

– User folders to organise dashboards and control visibility (security)

– Ensure that underlying reports are accessible to the run time user

– Always use graph in underlying report

– Side-by-side dashboard components for comparison views

– Use Report Headings for columns, Title Headings for components

Deploying

– Develop reports and dashboards in personal folders, save to public folders when ready

– Leverage reports that use “My Team” filters

– Clone dashboards and change the run time user

– Create dashboards for others or temporarily grant required permissions

Dashboard - Best Practices Using

– Right-click on an individual dashboard graphic to send as an attachment “Email picture…”

– Add your dashboard to the home page – show top three elements

– Compliance checks – Review refresh date

– Manage from the application for improved adoption

• Pipeline Review Calls

• Board Presentations

• Departmental Reviews

• Individual Performance Reviews (One on One’s)

– Use reports and dashboards to help drive data consistency as part of the data cleanup process/ to enforce data quality

• Example: Create an “exception” dashboard that lists ‘All Accounts without Industry’

Leverage the AppExchange

Dashboards – 2 Dimensions

Create two horizontal bar charts and put side-by-side

Dashboards – Year on Year

Create formula for

month/quarter label

Create formula – Current year

amount

Create formula – Previous

year amount

Create Summary report

formula - percentage

http://blogs.salesforce.com/blogs/2005/09/year_over_year_.html

Substitute URL for Drill to Report in Dashboards

Allow users to control the drill-to location

The creator of the dashboard can drill to another

dashboard, a report (possibly passing parameters),

a detail page, an s-control, or another system using

a web interface

Allow a user to select whether to use the

standard drill-down location or a user entered

one

Users can create custom workflows linking

dashboards or directing users to any web page

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Since Winter ’07 - Analytics Capabilities

S-Controls as a dashboard componentsAllows inline integration with 3rd party and custom components. Deliver visually stunning, interactive dashboards.

Drill through to URLBuild guided analysis into dashboards allowing users to move easily from one dashboard to another in a logical fashion.

Read-only report userRestrict users from performing ad hoc analysis and report creation. Provides system administrators with greater control over user functionality.

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https://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/detail_overview.jsp?id=a03300000033IPOAA2Report in Dashboard HTML code

Analytics Mash-upsInsert any application component into a dashboard

On Demand Spreadsheets

Interactive Controls

Any Analytic

Component

Success in the AppExchange Analytics CategoryChoice of best-in-class analytics applications

AppExchange Analytics Category

Products in development for Winter ’07

Current AppExchange partners

Dashboard - Best Practices

Setting Up

– Identify users who will have “Manage Dashboards” permission

– User folders to organize dashboards and control visibility (security)

– Ensure that underlying reports are accessible to the run time user

– Always use graph in underlying report

– Side-by-side components for comparison views

– Use Report Headings for columns, Title Headings for components

Deploying

– Develop reports and dashboards in personal folders, save to public folders when ready

– Leverage reports that use “My Team” filters

– Clone dashboards and change the run time user

– Create dashboards for others or temporarily grant required permissions

Dashboard - Best Practices

Using

– Right-click on an individual dashboard graphic to send as an

attachment “Email picture …”

– Add your dashboard to the home page – show top three

elements

– Compliance checks – Review refresh date

– Manage from the application for improved adoption

• Pipeline Review Calls

• Board Presentations

• Departmental Reviews

• Individual Performance Reviews (One on One’s)

Useful Links

Reporting Fundamentals - 30 minutes

– http://www.salesforce.com/au/services-training/education-services/online-training/adm-120.jsp

Dashboard Mechanics - 20 minutes

– http://www.salesforce.com/au/services-training/education-services/online-training/adm-125.jsp

Successforce.com

– Search “Reporting” or “Dashboards”

– Analytics Blog - http://blogs.salesforce.com/analytics/

AppExchange

– Category “Analytics” http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/category_list.jsp?NavCode__c=a0130000006P6IoAAK-1

Additional Information

Salesforce Editions

Salesforce Editions

– Group, PE, EE & UE (Some items such as sControls examples

shown are only available in EE & UE)

Alternative Options

Please check out the AppExchange (

www.appexchange.com) under the “Anlaytics” category.

There are several alternative offerings to

salesforce.com’s reporting and dashboards. There are

also a number of prebuilt dashboards available.

Skill Level Required

The person setting up reports and/or dashboards

should have a good understanding of the which objects

data is being input to and the relationships of those

objects with each other.

Reports can be created by end users. Dashboards are

generally best created by the system administrator.