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CRM 2011 Actionable Goal Charts and Dashboards

Post Author: Joe D365 |

Ever wonder how you could make goals actionable through dashboards? Let me walk you through it and soon you'll be on your way!

These are the steps you are going to take:

  • Set up your goals via the new Goal feature in Dynamics CRM 2011.
  • Create any custom chart(s) that you need to visualize the attainment of the goal. Some out of the box charts are also available.
  • Build a dashboard that provides the chart(s) that you need to monitor to fulfill your role in the organization.

Let's take the example of a Central Region Sales Manager. As the regional sales manager I have a dashboard that includes my teams' quarterly revenue goal. Through the Goal Progress chart I can see my regions quarterly revenue goal, actual and in progress values. There are only a few days left in the quarter and we are $82,500 short in meeting our regional goal. I also have insight into my team members' goal breakdown. I can see that Joe hit his target already but Jane is falling a bit short.

In order to take action on pulling in the final $82,500 I'm going to drill into the pipeline report that is right of the Goal Progress chart in the same dashboard and see what opportunities are in the negotiation stage. I can expand the chart to show the records that support the visualization inline.

I drill into the negotiations stage of the pipeline and bring up only the opportunities in this stage. I can see that we have $649,500 of potential revenue currently in negotiation. I'm becoming more confident that we can pull in the $82,500 that is needed to make our regional quarterly revenue target.

Next I'd like to see who is managing these opportunities so I drill down one more time and look at "by account manager".

I now see that that Jane is managing $462,500 of the negotiation pipeline and Joe $187,000.

I see one opportunity that is estimated to close this month so I click on send email link from the ribbon and shoot off an email to Jane to try and get this closed by the end of the month.

Another communication option is Microsoft Lync that is embedded in Dynamics CRM 2011. Lync provides the ability to communicate from the context of Dynamics CRM by providing a richer collaborative experience with consistent presence, click to call options and a new Contact Card. When Lync is turned on I can view Jane's online presence and communicate with her via IM or video chat instantaneously right from the context of the CRM Opportunity record.

So as a sales manager, not only do I have a dashboard with the KPIs that I need to monitor to fulfill my role within the organization but the charts are intuitive and actionable.

Happy CRM'ing

Joe CRM
By Joe D365
Joe D365 is a Microsoft Dynamics 365 superhero who runs on pure Dynamics adrenaline. As the face of PowerObjects, Joe D365’s mission is to reveal innovative ways to use Dynamics 365 and bring the application to more businesses and organizations around the world.

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