Much of the work we do in developing Sage CRM, is focussed on making it as easy as possible to get information in to the system. However, the main interest to users is what they can get out, to help with their day-to-day tasks. A CRM implementation that doesn't recognise this, will never be adopted by users and will consequently fail to meet business needs.
Sage CRM is provided with a range of reporting tools, of which we find ‘interactive dashboards’ the most useful way of providing valuable business information.
With a dashboard, data can be drawn together from a number of sources and displayed as a series of graphs, tables and charts in a single screen. These then provide quick ‘at-a-glance’ access to information relevant to a user or department within the business.
Dashboards can be used for a range of business information purposes. For instance, a member of the sales team may want to see information regarding opportunity stage & status, leads and forecasting, alongside contact lists and a calendar view. A senior manager will probably be interested in business KPIs relating to their departments of the business generally.
Sage CRM will support many custom dashboards, and individual users can be assigned access to one or more of these.
Information can be displayed on dashboards from a number of sources:
- ‘Internal’ CRM data
- External Web Sources and RSS feeds
- Data from integrated systems such as accounts and production systems.
It is the latter of these that makes Sage CRM dashboards particularly powerful. For instance, an operations manager could not only see what is in the sales pipeline held in CRM, but can also monitor production information drawn from process systems – all from a single screen.
Dashboards are compiled from individual elements called ‘widgets’. These can be passive or dynamic, allowing a simple view of information or a graphical view with drill-down capabilities.
The application for Sage CRM dashboards is almost limitless. We have extensive experience of developing simple and complex dashboard screens for a wide range of businesses. Please get in touch to discuss your reporting requirements.