How to Create a Dashboard in Salesforce

By Neeraj Shukla | February 13, 2024 7:19 am

Creating a comprehensive and effective dashboard in Salesforce not only enhances your ability to monitor key metrics and data points but also streamlines the integration process with various external applications and services to automate workflow. Salesforce is among one of the best dashboard apps in the market. This blog post will guide you through the steps to create an effective Salesforce dashboard, use workflow automation to integrate Salesforce with popular services like Stripe, Google Calendar, WordPress, and Google Analytics, and highlight some examples and best practices for Salesforce dashboards, including Salesforce dynamic dashboards and reports. These steps and tips will help streamline your data analysis and integration processes, making your Salesforce experience more productive and insightful.

Understanding Dashboards in Salesforce

Understanding and effectively utilizing dashboards within Salesforce is pivotal for maximizing the platform's capabilities to visualize, monitor, and analyze your business data comprehensively. A Salesforce dashboard serves as a dynamic and graphical interface that presents real-time data aggregated from a variety of reports generated within the Salesforce ecosystem. These dashboards are instrumental in offering critical insights into key business metrics, thereby facilitating users in making swift and well-informed decisions that drive business growth and operational efficiency.

Key Components and Features of Salesforce Dashboards

Components: Dashboards in Salesforce are composed of various components, each acting as a visual representation of data derived from reports. These components can include a diverse range of visual elements such as charts (bar, line, pie, etc.), gauges (to measure progress against goals), tables (for detailed data views), metrics (for key figure highlight), and even custom visual force pages for more advanced, tailored data visualization needs. The versatility in components ensures that every conceivable business metric can be displayed most appropriately and insightfully.

Data Sources: The backbone of any dashboard component is the data it represents, which is sourced from Salesforce reports. This direct linkage means that the integrity, quality, and structure of the reports you create in Salesforce have a direct impact on the clarity, accuracy, and effectiveness of the dashboards you design. Crafting well-structured reports with relevant data fields and filters is crucial for developing dashboards that truly reflect the health and performance of your business operations.

Dynamic Dashboards: One of Salesforce's powerful features is the capability to create dynamic dashboards. These dashboards are capable of displaying data that is specifically tailored to the individual user viewing it, based on their role, permissions, and preferences. This customization ensures that sales representatives, managers, executives, and other stakeholders have access to data that is pertinent and actionable for their specific roles and responsibilities, enhancing the relevance and utility of the dashboards they interact with.

Refresh Schedule: To maintain the relevance and accuracy of the data displayed, Salesforce dashboards can be configured to refresh automatically at predefined intervals. This feature ensures that the latest data updates are always reflected, providing users with current insights into business metrics without the need for manual intervention. For situations that require immediate data updates, manual refresh options are also available, allowing users to ensure they are working with the most up-to-date information at any given moment.

How to Build a Salesforce Dashboard?

Building a Salesforce dashboard involves a series of steps that require a basic understanding of Salesforce and its reporting features. Dashboards in Salesforce are powerful tools that provide visual representations of your business data, enabling you to make informed decisions based on real-time insights. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to design a good dashboard:

Step 1: Identify Key Metrics

First, determine the specific metrics or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) you aim to track with your dashboard. This selection is crucial as it guides the overall design and functionality of your dashboard, ensuring it meets the intended objectives and provides valuable insights to the intended audience.

Step 2: Design Your Report

Create the underlying reports that will feed data into your dashboard components. Each component on a dashboard is powered by a report, so it's essential to design these reports with precision. Start by navigating to the Reports tab in Salesforce, selecting "New Report," and then choosing the most appropriate report type for your data needs. Customize your report by selecting the fields, filters, and criteria that align with the metrics you're tracking.

Step 3: Organize Your Data

Before you proceed to dashboard creation, ensure your reports are organized and classified correctly. This might involve grouping reports into folders for easier access and management. Proper organization is key to maintaining a streamlined process for dashboard updates and management.

Step 4: Create a New Dashboard

Go to the Dashboards tab and select "New Dashboard." Provide a name and description for your dashboard, and choose the folder where you want it saved. This is the initial setup that lays the foundation for your dashboard's structure and accessibility.

Step 5: Add Components to Your Dashboard

With your dashboard created, start adding components. These can be charts, graphs, tables, or metrics that visually represent the data from your reports. For each component, select the source report and customize the display options to best suit how you want the data presented.

Step 6: Configure Dashboard Properties

Adjust the properties of your dashboard to control how data is displayed. This includes setting the running user, which determines whose data access permissions are used to view the dashboard. You can opt for a fixed user or enable dynamic dashboards for personalized data views based on the viewer's permissions.

Step 7: Arrange and Customize Components

Organize your dashboard components by dragging and dropping them into your desired layout. Customize each component's appearance and settings to enhance readability and ensure the dashboard conveys the intended insights at a glance.

Step 8: Save and Share Your Dashboard

Once your dashboard is configured and organized to your satisfaction, save your changes. Then, decide on the sharing settings. Salesforce allows you to share dashboards with individuals, groups, or your entire organization, depending on the level of visibility and access you wish to grant.

Step 9: Schedule Refreshes

To ensure your dashboard displays the most current data, schedule automatic refreshes. This can be done from the dashboard settings, where you can specify the frequency and timing of the updates.

Automate Salesforce with Appy Pie Connect to Streamline Your Workflow

Automating your Salesforce environment with no-code automation tools like Appy Pie Connect can significantly streamline your workflow and enhance overall productivity. Appy Pie Connect, an automation platform, allows you to integrate Salesforce with a wide range of other applications, enabling seamless data flow and interaction between your critical business tools. Here's how you can use Appy Pie Connect to automate and integrate Salesforce with other platforms, improving efficiency and insights:

Salesforce Dashboard Automation

Objective: Enhance your Salesforce dashboard's utility by automatically updating it with data from various integrated applications. This ensures that your dashboard always reflects the most current information, providing real-time insights into your business operations.

How to Achieve: Use Appy Pie Connect to create triggers based on events in other applications that automatically update records in Salesforce. For example, new customer interactions or transactions can be set to update sales metrics on your dashboard.

Integrate Salesforce with Stripe

Objective: Streamline your payment and customer data management by integrating Salesforce with Stripe. This integration can automate the recording of transactions and customer details directly into Salesforce.

How to Achieve: Set up a connection on Appy Pie Connect that triggers an update or creation of a Salesforce record whenever a new transaction is processed in Stripe. This ensures sales data is always up to date and reduces manual data entry.

Integrate Google Calendar with Salesforce

Objective: Keep your scheduling and customer interactions in sync by integrating Google Calendar with Salesforce. This can help in managing appointments, calls, and follow-ups more efficiently.

How to Achieve: Create automation that, for example, automatically logs a scheduled event in Salesforce whenever a new event is added to a specific Google Calendar. This keeps your team informed of upcoming engagements directly within Salesforce.

Integrate Salesforce with WordPress

Objective: Capture leads or customer inquiries from your WordPress site directly into Salesforce. This facilitates immediate follow-up and integration into your sales pipeline.

How to Achieve: Use Appy Pie Connect to create a workflow that automatically creates a new lead in Salesforce whenever a form is submitted on your WordPress site. This ensures that potential customers are quickly engaged and tracked.

Integrate Salesforce with Google Analytics

Objective: Gain deeper insights into your customer behavior and website performance by integrating Salesforce with Google Analytics. This can help tailor your sales strategies based on user interactions and preferences.

How to Achieve: Set up an integration that imports Google Analytics data into Salesforce. This could involve creating custom reports or dashboards within Salesforce that reflect website analytics, helping to align sales efforts with user engagement trends.

Integrate Salesforce with Gmail

Objective: Streamline email communications and enhance customer relationship management by integrating Salesforce with Gmail. This integration ensures that email interactions are automatically tracked and logged in Salesforce, providing a comprehensive view of all communications with customers and prospects.

How to Achieve: Set up automation on Appy Pie Connect that creates or updates records in Salesforce (e.g., contacts, leads, opportunities) whenever emails are sent or received in Gmail. This could include logging email content as activity records or updating contact details based on email interactions. For instance, when you receive an email from a new lead, Appy Pie Connect can automatically create a new lead record in Salesforce.

Integrate Salesforce with Trello

Objective: Enhance project management and collaboration by integrating Salesforce with Trello. This integration allows for the automatic creation of Trello cards based on Salesforce events, such as new opportunities or case submissions, making it easier to track and manage related tasks and projects.

How to Achieve: Use Appy Pie Connect to create a link between Salesforce and Trello where specific actions in Salesforce—like closing a sale or receiving a customer support ticket—automatically generate corresponding Trello cards. This ensures that all team members are aligned and can track the progress of sales or support activities through Trello's visual boards.

Try More Salesforce Integrations

Conclusion

Creating a Salesforce dashboard and integrating it with external applications like Stripe, Google Calendar, WordPress, Google Analytics, Gmail, and Trello using Appy Pie Connect can significantly elevate your workflow efficiency and data analysis capabilities. These steps and integrations enable a more productive and insightful Salesforce experience, ensuring that key metrics and data points are not only monitored in real time but also that your workflow is seamlessly automated. By harnessing the power of Salesforce dashboards and leveraging no-code automation with Appy Pie Connect, businesses can achieve a streamlined process that enhances decision-making, customer engagement, and overall operational effectiveness, paving the way for growth and success in the digital age.

Neeraj Shukla

Content Manager at Appy Pie