Sales teams live or die by what they can measure. If you’re fighting with spreadsheets, or your out-of-the-box reports never answer the right questions, you’re not alone. This guide is for sales managers, ops folks, or anyone who needs real answers from their data—not just pretty charts for a slide deck.
We’ll walk through how to build dashboards in People that actually help your sales team hit their numbers, spot problems early, and skip the weekly data-wrangling ritual. No fluff, just practical steps and a few honest warnings about what works and what to skip.
Step 1: Get Clear on What You Actually Need
Before you open People or start clicking around, stop. The biggest mistake is building dashboards for the sake of dashboards. Here’s what to do first:
- Ask the sales team (really): What questions do they need answers to? “How many deals are slipping this month?” or “Who’s crushing quota?” is a lot better than “Show me all the data.”
- Prioritize ruthlessly: Pick 3–5 key metrics. More than that, and nobody looks at them.
- Typical sales metrics: pipeline value, closed-won deals, win rate, average deal size, sales cycle length.
- Don’t track what you won’t use. Vanity metrics just waste screen space.
- Define how you’ll use it: Is this for weekly standups? Forecasting? Coaching reps? Knowing the use case will shape your design.
Pro tip: Write these questions down. If you can’t say what the dashboard is for, you’ll waste time building something nobody checks.
Step 2: Audit Your Data in People
You can’t report on what you don’t track—or what’s a mess. Before you build:
- Check your fields: Does every deal have a value, stage, and close date? Are sales reps tracked consistently? If not, fix it now.
- Spot the gaps: If you want to report on lead source but half your records say “unknown,” your dashboard will be garbage.
- Clean it up: Even a few minutes cleaning up deal stages or correcting typos can save hours later.
What works: Taking 30 minutes to clean your data now saves you days of confusion later.
What to ignore: Don’t try to fix all your data forever; just make sure your top 3–5 metrics are solid.
Step 3: Sketch Your Dashboard Layout First
Don’t jump into the builder yet. Even a napkin sketch helps.
- Group related metrics: For example, put all pipeline metrics together, rep performance together, etc.
- Think about flow: The most important info should be top-left, like a newspaper headline.
- Decide on chart types: Tables for details, bar charts for rankings, line charts for trends. Don’t go chart-crazy—simple is best.
Pro tip: Show your sketch to a few sales reps. If they say, “I’d actually use this,” you’re on the right track.
Step 4: Build the Dashboard in People
Now, open up People and get hands-on. Here’s how to do it:
4.1: Start a New Dashboard
- Go to the “Dashboards” area.
- Click “Create New Dashboard.”
- Give it a clear name, like “Sales Weekly Overview” or “Rep Performance.”
4.2: Add Your First Report
- Click “Add Widget” or “Add Report.”
- Choose the data source (deals, activities, accounts, whatever matches your metric).
- Pick your chart type. (Don’t pick pie charts unless you have to.)
- Set up your filters—e.g., only show deals this quarter, or only open opportunities.
- Give it a title that makes sense (“Open Pipeline by Stage,” not “Widget 1”).
4.3: Repeat for Other Metrics
- Add each key metric as its own widget or report.
- Use consistent filters (e.g., always show current quarter, or filter by team).
- If you need to, group widgets into sections using headers or spacing.
What works: Keep layout simple. White space is your friend.
What doesn’t: Don’t try to show everything—it’ll just overwhelm people.
4.4: Set Up Drill-Downs (If Available)
- Many dashboard tools in People let you click on a chart and see details. Use this for things like “Deals at Risk” so you can quickly jump from high-level to specifics.
- Don’t overdo it—too many layers and people get lost.
Step 5: Share and Automate
No dashboard is useful if nobody sees it.
- Share with the team: Use People’s sharing options—email, team links, permissions. Make sure people can actually access it.
- Automate delivery: If People lets you send dashboards on a schedule (e.g., every Monday 8am), set it up. Otherwise, you’ll be the one nagging people.
- Get feedback: Ask the team after a week what’s missing or confusing. Tweak as needed.
Pro tip: Pin the dashboard as a browser favorite, or make it the homepage for your sales team.
Step 6: Keep It Simple, Update as You Go
A dashboard is never “done.” But don’t get caught in endless tweaking.
- Review every quarter: Is anyone using those extra charts? If not, kill them.
- Update metrics if the sales process changes.
- Archive old dashboards. Too many options just confuse people.
What works: Less is more. The best dashboards answer 3–5 questions, fast.
What to ignore: Fancy features you don’t need (like custom color themes or animated charts).
Common Pitfalls (And How to Dodge Them)
- Too much data: If it takes more than 30 seconds to find the answer, it’s too complex.
- Outdated info: Automate updates, or set a reminder to refresh the dashboard. Old data is worse than no data.
- Ignoring adoption: If reps aren’t using it, ask why. It’s usually because it’s too complicated or doesn’t answer their real questions.
Wrapping Up
Custom dashboards in People don’t have to be a huge project. Start with what you really need, keep it simple, and be ready to tweak as your team’s needs change. Don’t get hung up on perfection—good enough and actually used beats fancy and ignored. Stick to the basics, and your sales team will thank you.