Dashboards in Microsoft Dynamics CRM act as a tool to get you up to speed and in-context with the areas of your business that you care about each time you open Dynamics CRM. They can assist you in anything from pursuing the best leads for that day, to following up on your most urgent activities, to providing instant pipeline visibility, and even help you identify spontaneous trends that may have otherwise been overlooked.
Microsoft Dynamics CRM dashboards aren’t just for high level decision makers or strategists, but for all roles in the organization. I will walk you through the process of personalizing the visualizations in your dashboard to perfectly fit your role, your goals, and what you would like to see when you open Microsoft Dynamics CRM. But first, let’s distinguish between a visualization and a dashboard.
Visualization
Visualizations in Microsoft Dynamics CRM are graphical displays of your grid data, presented in the form of charts that provide you with a clear view to help you spot trends and monitor other valuable metrics. Charts automatically update to reflect the filtering done on the data in the specific grid that the chart is derived from. You can drill down into the grid data and view the actual records that comprise the chart.
Dashboard
The dashboard in Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a business intelligence tool that provides a space for snapshots of your data in various forms (of your choosing), and acts as a homepage upon opening the application. The dashboard is like a container for your data, allowing you to view up to six (6) visualizations, grids, IFRAMES, or web resources all on the same screen to help you get in-context upon opening Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
Dashboards are distinguished between organization-owned dashboards and user-owned dashboards. Organization-owned dashboards are available to everyone across the organization, and contain only components that apply to the organization as a whole. User-owned dashboards can contain data that are relevant to the user, such as their open activities or the accounts they are personally following. You can share user-owned dashboards with other users throughout the organization who share similar roles, which can be helpful in keeping team members on the same page.
Creating Your Personal Dashboard
1. To create your own personal dashboard, start by going into your Dashboard in Microsoft Dynamics CRM and click “New”.
2. After clicking “New” you will be prompted to select your Dashboard Layout. There are numerous layout options available to fit your needs and preferences.
3. From there, your chosen dashboard layout will appear and you can begin populating it with the various components and visualizations of your choice. To populate a space within the dashboard, click on the component icon you wish to have populate that space. Available components are charts, lists, IFRAMES, and web resources.
4. After selecting a component, such as a chart, a window will pop up where you can select the record type, the view you wish to utilize, and the nature of the chart itself (by industry, by owner, etc.).
5. Once you’ve filled your dashboard with the components that are most relevant for you, simply enter the name of your choice for your custom dashboard, click “Save”, and you’re done! It’s really that easy.
Once you’ve saved your custom dashboard, it will be available every time you open Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and can be set as your default dashboard. You can share your personal dashboard with other users in your organization who will find the information useful.
Hopefully this gives you a general idea on how dashboards in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 can help bring more value to your work day. Something to always remember is the more features and functionality you properly utilize in your CRM system, the more sustainable benefits you achieve - and they add up! Doing the legwork to increase adoption and utilization of new areas in CRM benefits you tremendously. Fortunately, laying the groundwork for personalized dashboards is an incredibly easy task!
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By Turnkey Technologies, Inc. – Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri Microsoft Dynamics CRM & Microsoft Gold Certified Dynamics GP Partner
Hello,
I have a quick question for you. I want to have the chart panel associated with my custom view to be always open when I select this view. Do I need to do it by a plug-in or there is another way.
Tx in advance