Working with Dashboards

Table of Contents  [ Hide]

Create Dashboards
Create Charts
Drilling down dashboards
Zooming out Charts
Managing Dashboard Folders

Dashboards are a pictorial representation of your custom report data, which gives a real-time snapshot of your organization's key metrics. Using dashboards you can easily visualize comparisons, patterns, and trends in sales, marketing, support, and inventory related data. For example, you can have a glance the products that are selling fast over a period of time, compare the current quarter sales with previous quarter sales, or compare the actual sales to the projected sales.

In Zoho CRM, dashboard comprises of different types of two-dimensional and three-dimensional charts (components). These charts are built over the Macromedia Flash technology, which displays the data dynamically. The various types of charts are bar, pie, line, table, or funnel. The unique feature in the Zoho CRM system is the Funnel chart, which can be used to visualize the sales pipeline at various stages.

Note: Please ensure that your Web browser supports Macromedia Flash. In case your browser does not support Macromedia Flash plugin, click the Flash plugin icon to install it.

Limitations:

• Some of the international currency symbols will not be displayed properly.
• Dashboard properties (color, gradient, borders, background etc.) cannot be modified through user interface.
• Dashboards need to be refreshed manually to display the up-to-minute changes.

Create Dashboards

(Access Privilege: Read)

Dashboard is a summarized view of the custom report data in your CRM system. It provides a platform for a real-time analysis on the sales stages and business operations.

List of Standard Dashboard Components

In the Dashboard home page the following types of dashboards are available.

Module	Standard Dashboard Components
Leads	Leads by Source Leads by Status Sales by Lead Source Leads by Industry
Accounts and Contacts	Sales by Account Accounts by Industry
Potentials	Pipeline by Stage Pipeline by Probability Potentials by Type
Campaigns	Campaign Leads Campaign Vs Revenue
Cases and Solutions	Cases by Origin Cases by Priority Cases by Status
Products	Products by Category
Inventory Management	Vendors Vs Purchases Sales Orders by Accounts Contacts Vs Purchases Purchase Orders by Status Quotes by Accounts Quotes by Stage Invoices by Accounts Invoices by Status Sales Orders by Status

Note: You cannot modify or delete the standard dashboards.

To create a dashboard

1. Click the Dashboards tab.
2. In the Dashboards Home page, click the Go to Dashboard List link.
3. In the Dashboard List page, click Create New Dashboard.
4. In the New Dashboard page, do the following:
   • Enter the Dashboard Name.
     
   • Select Dashboard Folder from the list in which the dashboard has to be stored.
   • Enter the Description of the dashboard.
5. Click Save.

Create Charts

(Access Privilege: Read/Write)

After creating a dashboard you must add components (charts, representing the exact data in pictorial form), which includes Bar, Pie, Line, Funnel, or Table charts. You can select the charts to display the data in pictorial form and table to display the data in tabular format.

List of Standard Charts

Chart Type	Description	Example
Bar chart	To display two or more kinds of data, that can be used to compare values across categories.
Pie Chart	To display data that is divided into triangular areas proportional to the percentages of the whole and used to illustrate the relationship of parts to the whole.
Line Chart	To display a trend over a period with the variations in the multiple values in a single chart which a series of data points are connected by a continuous line.
Funnel Chart	To show the convergence of data from the entry level to exit level. It is typically used show the sales pipeline at any point of time.
Table Chart	To show sum of the values in each category of the data.

To create dashboards

1. Click the Dashboards tab.
2. In the Dashboards Home page, click the Add Component button.
3. In the Add Component page, under the Specify Component Details section specify the following:
   • Component Type: Select the component type either Chart or Table.
   • Component Header (Mandatory): Specify the component name.
   • Source Report: Select the custom report to be displayed in dashboard component.
4. Click the Next.
5. In the Add Component page, under the Specify Chart Details section, select the type of chart from the Select Chart Type list box. You can select Vertical Bar, Pie, Line, Funnel, or Table.
6. Click the Finish button. The new chart is displayed under the Dashboard.

After adding a chart to the dashboard, you can perform the following operations:

• Change to 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional view
• Drill-down the chart
• Zoom out the chart
• Delete the chart

Drilling down dashboards

(Access Privilege: Read)

You can view the data underlying each dashboard component.

To drill-down dashboards

1. Click the Dashboards tab.
2. In the Dashboards Home page, select the dashboard from the Switch to Dashboard drop-down list.
3. In the Dashboards Home page, click the dashboard component area for which you would like to display the report. The drill-down data is displayed in a report form.
4. In the Report page you can perform additional operations, such as Export to PDF/XLS/CSV, Save the report, customize further, or refresh the data.

Zooming out Charts

You can enlarge the chart for a better visualization of data, which is very useful while working with huge data.

To zoom out chart

1. Click the Dashboards tab.
2. In the Dashboards Home page, select the dashboard from the Switch to Dashboard drop-down list.
3. In the Dashboards Home page, under the required chart area click the icon.
4. The enlarged chart is displayed in a separate Window.

Managing Dashboard Folders

(Access Privilege: Read access)

Dashboards can be stored in publicly accessible folders for all the Zoho CRM users or private folders with a limited access to some of the users.

Note: System administrators and the users who created the dashboard folder have full control on dashboard folders. Other users can access the dashboards only after the owner of the folders enables the access rights.

To create dashboard folder

1. Click the Dashboards tab.
2. In the Dashboards Home page, click the Go to Dashboard List link.
3. In the Dashboard List page, click Create New Dashboard.
   
   
   
4. In the Dashboard Folder Details do the following:
   • Folder Name: Specify name of the folder.
   • Accessibility Details: Select one of the following options:
     • All Users are allowed to view this Dashboard Folder: Select if you would like to enable the folder access for all the users.
     • Show this Dashboard Folder only to me: Select if you would like to enable the folder access only to you.
     • Allow the following users to view this Dashboard Folder: Select the users or user roles who can access the folder.
       
5. Click Save.