How many times have you heard, "Can you give me a dashboard of that so I can see it at a glance?" Well for me, more times then I can count, and usually with visions of additional software and setup time dancing in my head while I was formulating my answer. But with dashboards are included, part of the product, ready and waiting. So now I can say, "Would you like that in terms of sales, service, marketing or a little of all three."
CRM 2011 actually comes with seven preconfigured though still customizable dashboards called CRM Overview, Customer Service Operations, Customer Service Performance, Customer Service Representative, Marketing, Sales Activity, and Sales Performance. They EACH have four to five charts that graphically display data so that executives, managers, sales and marketing people, and service reps can see what is happening at a glance. You also have three options on each chart - enlarging a chart, looking at the underlying data used to create a chart, or changing how a chart is being visually represented.
If you decide to take a closer look at the underlying data, clicking on different areas of the chart will filter the data used to create it so that you are only viewing that sub-group of data. This allows you to look at all the records from the chart or just the ones that are most important to you. And when data is updated in CRM, so are the charts, so that you are always looking at the most up to date information. As with most things in CRM 2011, the fun with data does not stop there, you can also create your own charts and turn them into your own dashboards. So if you want your data at a glance, you got it! CRM 2011 makes me look good. Let it make you look good too.
by Paige L. Cassada,
