Tailoring the Package for Your Org

Depending on how your Salesforce org is configured, the following areas of the reporting package may require configuration.

Superfluous reports

The package contains dashboards for Account Manager, Opportunity Manager and Sales Process Manager. If some of these products are not in use, the corresponding dashboards and reports may be removed if desired.

Opportunity Amount field

When reporting on amounts (pipeline, won amounts, etc.), the dashboards use the Altify Reporting Amount field on the Opportunity record. This is a custom formula field added by the reporting package. It defaults to the standard Opportunity Amount field.

If the standard Amount field is not the appropriate field to use - for example, if the custom setting Opp Amount Field has been configured differently in Altify Account Manager Settings or Altify Sales Process Settings – then the formula for the Altify Reporting Amount field should be updated to return the desired amount field (replacing ‘Amount’ with the appropriate field name). Doing this will affect the amount calculations across all of the dashboards.

If a different amount field needs to be used for the account dashboard versus the opportunity-based dashboards, there are two additional updates needed:

  • The package includes a Planned Amount formula field on the Altify Account Opportunity object which drives the ‘planned pipeline’ amounts in the Account Status Dashboard. This formula defaults to using the Altify Reporting Amount field for any current opportunities, but the formula field can be updated to reference a different amount field if desired.

  • The Unplanned Pipeline report, which drives a number of widgets on the Account Status Dashboard, also defaults to using Altify Reporting Amount when calculating pipeline. If a different amount field is required, add the appropriate field to the underlying report type and update the Pipeline Amount summary formula in the report to use this field.

Filtering/Segmentation

For the dashboards to be meaningful, the opportunities or accounts included should be filtered to a relevant set based on ownership, standard opportunity fields (such as amount and close date), or org-specific segmentation (e.g. renewals/new business or strategic/enterprise/mid-market, etc.).

By default, if no dashboard filters are applied, the widgets on the account dashboard will reflect the set of accounts normally visible to the running user, based on the user’s role and any Salesforce sharing rules in place. The widgets on the opportunity and sales process dashboards will reflect the set of opportunities visible based on the role of the running user.

Sample filters are included in the dashboards. These filters are based on the standard Salesforce Manager field, amount/close date for opportunities and account type for accounts. The filters should be validated based on whatever is most appropriate for your org - and updated if required.

Updating dashboard filters

  • If different dashboard filter fields are required, ensure that these fields are available in, or added to, all of the underlying report types and that the appropriate filter field is applied to each of the dashboard widgets.

  • Dashboards are limited to three filters, so if additional segmentation is required, there are a number of options:

    • Implement filters directly in the underlying reports.

    • Clone the dashboard for different sets of users with different filtering requirements.

    • Restrict opportunities/accounts based on the running user.

Date ranges

Many of the underlying reports have embedded date filters, e.g. filtering on opportunities created in Current FY, or on user activity in the last 90 days. Each of these filters should be reviewed to see if these are appropriate for your org and updated as necessary.

Currency Display

In a multicurrency org, amounts displayed on the dashboards are determined by the currency configured for each of the underlying reports and by the currency associated with the dashboard ‘View Dashboard As’ user.

In the initial GA version of the package (v1.28), the reports encode a specific currency setting of US$, so all dashboards default to this currency, regardless of the ‘view as’ user. This can be changed by editing the individual reports and updating the currency setting. In subsequent versions of the reporting package, the dashboards default to displaying in the currency of the ‘view as’ user. If a different currency is required, you can again do this by editing the currency associated with each of the underlying reports.

Prioritizing leading or lagging data

Each of the dashboards contains widgets which cover both leading and lagging indicators. In the case of the sales process and opportunity dashboards, this means that some widgets relate to open opportunities (leading) and some to closed (lagging), and the same dashboard filtering is applied to all.

Alternative approaches

In practice, it may make sense to filter the dashboards differently for open and closed opportunities. For example, a sales manager might want to look at open opportunities closing this year, and a sales executive may be interested in the outcomes for opportunities that closed in the previous year.

In this scenario, the sales process and opportunity dashboards can be cloned and used to create separate leading and lagging indicator dashboards, which include the widgets for open and closed opportunities respectively.

 

See Customizing the Dashboards for recommended and suggested ways to fine tune the dashboards to accurately reflect your organization's data and processes.