--- schema_version: "1" id: ba6eb76c078d85e9e4e8ff3977e01862d65ad6cf196fc8d2d78176579fd2e4d7 title: Best Practices for Building Your Own CRM Analytics Dashboard collection: admin version: current locale: en-us portal_url: https://docs.salesforce.com/admin/current/en-us/analytics/264-0-0/bi_dashboard_build_tips.md canonical_url: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=analytics.bi_dashboard_build_tips.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 source_site: help.salesforce.com content_type: documentation content_hash: 66946d0d5b56d0c11ac27e5437e1debb8d90f22ca1adeb707313c24fa32b324a description: Follow best practices to design and build useful, effective CRM Analytics dashboards, while minimizing rework and addressing potential gaps. products: - CRM Analytics - Cross Cloud release: "264" --- # Best Practices for Building Your Own CRM Analytics Dashboard Follow best practices to design and build useful, effective CRM Analytics dashboards, while minimizing rework and addressing potential gaps. Design a dashboard as a focused, task-oriented app. Work from purpose to structure to surface. Decide who it's for and what they need to do, map how they move through the data, and choose the look and feel last. - Before you build the dashboard, take into account the following design best practices: - Sketch your dashboard on paper or a whiteboard before you start building. - Know your audience. Identify who uses the dashboard and what decisions they make with it, and then design for that path of inquiry. See [Design for Your Audience: Personas and the Path of Inquiry](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=analytics.bi_dashboard_design_audience.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Before you choose charts or layout, understand who uses the dashboard, what they need to do with it, and whether to structure your app around personas or tasks. Designing for a specific audience keeps a dashboard focused and prevents it from becoming a catch-all."). - Prioritize elements, top left to bottom right. With languages that are read left to right, people start by looking at the top left corner and work their way down. Consider the audience's language and design for it. If your audience has limited time or attention, place important elements where they are noticed. - Place high-level, easy-to-read, actionable widgets near the top left, and place widgets with supporting information lower. For example, place numbers that display a single measure, such as revenue for the current quarter, high and to the left. Highlight facts that the audience wants to know at a glance. ![Example: summary measures at the top of a dashboard.](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-analytics-bi-264-0-0-production-enus/ec791473-f5b4-4f64-a656-9104f455d966/bi/images/bi/bi_dashboard_summary_measures.png) - Group filters together at the top or left so that they're quickly noticeable. Use a container widget to section them off in the dashboard. - A chart in CRM Analytics is primarily a way to ask questions, not a way to illustrate a conclusion. A good dashboard invites the audience to drill down and seek ever more focused and useful information. - Choose chart types based on the characteristics of the data, not for appearance or variety. For example, if most of your charts display value changes over time, they can all be line charts. See [Choose the Right Chart for Your Data](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=analytics.bi_dashboard_chart_types.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "First decide what insight matters most, then choose a chart type that delivers it."). - If a chart seems to need a lengthy caption or title, reconsider whether the chart is doing its job. Well-chosen data often speaks for itself. - Use container widgets to frame and organize related elements in the dashboard. ![This dashboard has separate containers for closed-won deals, expected-to-close deals, forecasts, and quota.](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-analytics-bi-264-0-0-production-enus/ec791473-f5b4-4f64-a656-9104f455d966/bi/images/bi/bi_dashboard_applyContainers.png) - While you build the dashboard: - Apply labels to sections and charts to annotate the dashboard. ![Each chart in the dashboard contains a label.](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-analytics-bi-264-0-0-production-enus/ec791473-f5b4-4f64-a656-9104f455d966/bi/images/bi/bi_dashboard_applyLabels.png) - Use colors to define sections. ![The dashboard uses colors to separate key performance metrics and filters.](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-analytics-bi-264-0-0-production-enus/ec791473-f5b4-4f64-a656-9104f455d966/bi/images/bi/bi_dashboard_applyColors.png) - Don't clutter the dashboard. Leave some empty space. If needed, break a dashboard into a series of dashboards. Use link widgets to help the user navigate them. To show more detail without adding clutter, use progressive disclosure. See [Reduce Clutter with Progressive Disclosure](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=analytics.bi_dashboard_progressive_disclosure.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Progressive disclosure shows users the essentials first and reveals detail only when they ask for it."). - Design for accessibility. Turn on high-contrast colors and follow color and contrast guidance so that everyone can use your dashboard. See [Design Accessible CRM Analytics Dashboards](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=analytics.bi_dashboard_accessibility.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Design dashboards that everyone can use, including people who rely on high contrast or who have color-vision differences."). ![Toggling high contrast to on](https://sf-zdocs-cdn-prod.zoominsoftware.com/tdta-analytics-bi-264-0-0-production-enus/ec791473-f5b4-4f64-a656-9104f455d966/bi/images/bi/bi_dashboard_high_contrast.png) - Make insights actionable. Let users act on what they see, update a record, start a flow, or open a related record, without leaving the dashboard. See [Make CRM Analytics Dashboards Actionable](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=analytics.bi_dashboard_actionable.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Design each dashboard so that the audience can act on what they see without leaving Salesforce."). - Build for performance as you go. Keep queries and widget counts lean so that dashboards load fast. See [Best Practices for CRM Analytics Dashboard Performance](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=analytics.bi_dashboard_performance.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Design dashboards that load quickly. Fast dashboards keep users engaged and reduce load on your org."). - After you build the dashboard: - Have users review the dashboard before making it final. Post a dashboard to Chatter to get feedback. Users can annotate the widgets in the dashboard to have conversations about the content. - Review the dashboard against a final checklist: every widget maps to a question and an action, key metrics are top-left, chart types match the data, color is used consistently and works in high contrast, the default page loads quickly, and the dashboard renders well wherever it's used. #### See Also - [Build CRM Analytics Dashboards](https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=analytics.bi_dashboard_build_flex.htm&release=264.0.0&type=5 "Build a CRM Analytics dashboard to continuously monitor key metrics of your business, analyzing the results by key dimensions, like region, products, and time period. Add interactive charts that synthesize information into an easy-to-read format. To complement the charts, add tables that show record-level details. Add filters to allow dashboard viewers to change the focus of the results. Create customized layouts to optimize the display of a dashboard on different types of devices, like mobile phones, tablets, and desktops.")