CRM dashboards: definitions before charts

A useful dashboard answers questions that already exist in a recurring meeting. Typical ones in a sales review:

• Is there enough in the pipeline to cover the target, and at which stages?
• Where are deals ageing, and which ones have stopped moving?
• Is activity where it needs to be, by person and by stage?
• Which sources produce deals that close, rather than deals that start?

Each of those becomes one panel. If a proposed panel answers no question anyone has asked in the last month, it is a candidate for a report instead.

1. Formula. What is counted, what is excluded, and whether the number is a count, a sum, or a ratio of two defined things.
2. Source. The object and field it comes from, so a disagreement can be traced to data rather than debated as opinion.
3. Filters. Which records are in scope: owners, stages, record types, internal accounts, test records.
4. Window. The period covered and whether it is a point-in-time snapshot or a period total. Most pipeline disagreements are one dashboard counting by close date and the other by creation date.
5. Owner. The person accountable for the number being right, and for the response when it moves.
6. Threshold. What level starts a conversation, and what that conversation is.

• One question per panel; do not combine two measures to save space.
• Show the window on the panel itself, not only in a filter nobody opens.
• Prefer a small number and a trend over a decorative chart that hides the magnitude.
• Keep the same metric names as the definitions sheet — a rename on a dashboard is how two versions of a metric start.
• Retire panels when the decision they informed has been made.

The example below is hypothetical and describes a pattern rather than a client account.

Dashboard definition and build is the second of the CRM consulting scopes, inside the Operations & Systems capability. Where the measures are business-level rather than CRM-level, the KPI work covers definitions and review cadence across systems.