If you're running sales ops or managing a small team and need to keep tabs on your pipeline, you know reporting can get messy—fast. Endless spreadsheets, a dozen tabs, and still, you’re not sure where deals are stuck. If you’re using Insightly, you do have tools to see key sales metrics at a glance—but only if you know how to set up dashboards in a way that actually helps, not just looks flashy for your boss.
This guide is for sales leads, ops folks, and anyone who needs real answers from their CRM, not just colorful charts. We’ll walk through building dashboards that show what matters, skip the fluff, and call out which features are worth your time (and which aren’t).
Step 1: Figure Out Which Sales Metrics Actually Matter
Before you even open up Insightly’s dashboard tools, get clear on what you need to watch. There are dozens of possible sales metrics, but only a handful actually move the needle for most teams. Some basics to consider:
- Opportunity Pipeline: How many open deals are in each stage?
- Conversion Rates: What percent of leads turn into sales?
- Deal Velocity: How fast are deals moving from open to closed?
- Sales by Rep: Who’s bringing in the most closed-won deals?
- Lost Reasons: Why are deals being lost?
Pro tip: You don’t need 12 graphs on your dashboard. Focus on 3-5 metrics that you’ll actually act on every week. If you’re not going to change your process based on a number, skip it.
Step 2: Get Your Data House in Order
Dashboards are only as good as the data behind them. If your team skips fields, leaves stages blank, or logs everything as “Other,” your charts will be garbage.
Checklist before building dashboards:
- Make sure pipeline stages are clearly defined (and everyone uses them right).
- Standardize field values—especially for things like “Lead Source” or “Lost Reason.”
- Clean up duplicates. One deal showing up twice can throw off your totals.
- Get buy-in from your team: if they don’t fill in the CRM, your dashboards are useless.
Honest take: Don’t waste time making pretty dashboards until your basic data hygiene is sorted. Otherwise, you’ll be decorating a dumpster fire.
Step 3: Navigate to Insightly Dashboards
Once your data’s in good shape, actually building dashboards in Insightly is pretty straightforward:
- Log in to Insightly.
- From the left sidebar, select Dashboards.
- You’ll see any dashboards you (or your org) have already created. To make a new one, click Create Dashboard (top right).
Insightly lets you create multiple dashboards, so you can have one for sales, another for execs, etc. Give each a clear name, like “Sales Pipeline – Weekly” or “Q2 Conversion Rates.”
Step 4: Add Useful Widgets (Not Just Pretty Graphs)
This is where most people get distracted by shiny options. Insightly offers several widget types:
- Charts: Bar, line, pie, donut, etc.
- Number Cards: Big, bold numbers for totals or averages.
- Tables: Good for lists like “Top 10 Deals.”
- Funnels: Visualize stages, e.g., Lead → Opportunity → Closed.
What actually works:
- Bar or column charts for seeing pipeline by stage or sales by rep.
- Number cards for quick “How many deals closed this month?” checks.
- Funnel charts for spotting drop-offs (but only if your stages are consistent).
- Tables for reviewing key deals or stuck opportunities.
What to skip:
- Pie charts: They look nice in meetings but are hard to read for more than 3-4 categories.
- Widgets you never look at: If you scroll past it every time, just remove it.
Pro tip: Less is more. If your dashboard looks like Times Square, you’ll start ignoring it.
Step 5: Build a Simple Sales Pipeline Dashboard
Let’s walk through a basic setup. Here’s how to create a dashboard that covers the essentials:
1. Pipeline by Stage (Bar Chart)
- Add a chart widget.
- Data source: Opportunities.
- Group by: Stage.
- Filter: Only open deals.
- Now you can see where deals are bunching up.
2. This Month’s Closed Deals (Number Card)
- Add a number card.
- Data source: Opportunities.
- Filter: Close date is this month, status is “Closed Won.”
- Shows at a glance if you’re on track.
3. Conversion Rate (Funnel or Custom Calculation)
- Add a funnel if your process has clear stages.
- Or, use two number cards side-by-side: one for leads created, one for deals closed. Do the math yourself.
- Don’t obsess over fancy formulas—clarity beats complexity.
4. Top 5 Deals by Value (Table)
- Add a table widget.
- Sort by deal amount, descending.
- Filter: Only open or closing soon.
5. Deals Lost This Month (Table or Bar Chart)
- Widget: Table or bar chart.
- Filter: Close date is this month, status is “Closed Lost.”
- Group by lost reason for a quick gut-check.
Honest take: This setup covers 90% of what most sales teams need. You can always add more later, but start simple.
Step 6: Set Filters and Refresh Settings
You don’t want to stare at stale data. In Insightly, most widgets let you:
- Set date ranges (this month, last quarter, custom).
- Filter by team, owner, product, or any field you track.
- Set refresh intervals (e.g., daily, hourly, manual refresh).
Pro tip: Unless your sales cycle is super short, daily refresh is plenty. Hourly stats look cool but rarely matter for decision-making.
Step 7: Share and Schedule Reports (Without Spamming Everyone)
Insightly dashboards can be shared with your team or exported as PDFs (useful for meetings). You can also schedule email reports.
- Share with care: Only give dashboard access to folks who really need it. More eyes = more questions.
- Scheduled emails: Set up for weekly or monthly, not daily. No one wants another unread notification.
- Exporting: PDF exports are handy for exec summaries, but don’t rely on them for day-to-day tracking.
Reality check: If people don’t look at the dashboard now, spamming them with auto-reports won’t change that.
Step 8: Iterate—Don’t Set and Forget
Dashboards are living tools. Once you’ve used yours for a few weeks:
- Ask the team what’s actually useful and what’s ignored.
- Drop charts no one uses.
- Tweak filters as your process changes.
- Add new widgets only if a real need comes up.
Pro tip: Set a calendar reminder to review your dashboard setup every quarter. It’ll keep things focused and relevant.
What Not to Bother With
- Overly complex formulas: If you need to reference a spreadsheet to explain a chart, it’s too much.
- Canned “vanity” metrics: Big numbers that don’t help you make decisions—skip ‘em.
- Widgets for the sake of widgets: More charts ≠ more insight.
Keep It Simple and Useful
The best dashboards tell you—at a glance—if your sales process is healthy, where things are stuck, and what needs attention. Don’t chase perfection. Start with a few key widgets, make sure your data is solid, and tweak as you go.
If you find yourself ignoring your dashboard, or if it’s not helping you run better meetings or coach your team, strip it back. The goal is clarity, not decoration. Iterate, keep it simple, and your Insightly dashboard will actually help you sell more—not just look busy.