Zoho CRM reports and dashboards that don't show what you need

Start from the base module

Zoho says the primary module is "the base module where the data for the report is taken from". You can add parent modules (related through a lookup field) and child modules (those in the primary module's related list), and a child module can be set to Inclusive or Exclusive. Per Zoho, exclusive shows only parent records that have related child data, while inclusive shows all parent records.

Zoho also gives limits: up to five parent modules per report and up to three reports joined together.

Source: Zoho Help: Understanding and building reports

Grouping and aggregation turn a list into an answer

Zoho describes row groups that put records in the same category together, a second layer of column groups, and aggregation that computes sum, average, largest value, lowest value and record count for each group. A matrix report is the result of combining row and column groups into a grid with row and column labels.

A flat list of records rarely answers a management question. A grouped or grid view usually does.

Source: Zoho Help: Understanding and building reports

Charts and where they go

Zoho says charts are built from a finished report by choosing the grouping field (x-axis), the measure (y-axis) and a chart type such as pie, bar or line. A chart can be added to a dashboard, and per Zoho, editing or deleting the report's chart does not affect dashboards it was already added to.

Source: Zoho Help: Understanding and building reports

KPI components for the numbers people check daily

Zoho's KPI page lists five styles: Standard, Growth Index, Basic, Scorecard and Rankings. You choose a metric (not only a record count) and a module, set up to 10 criteria, pick a duration, and can set a comparison metric and an objective in the comparison section. Rankings can be ranked by day, week, month, quarter or year, and the ranking grouping option is available only for the Scorecard and Rankings styles.

Zoho also says Zia can suggest KPI configurations based on your data, which you can accept or change.

Source: Zoho Help: Key Performance Indicators

Dashboard building blocks and sharing

Zoho's dashboard page names these component types: KPI, Chart, Target Meter, Quadrant, Zone, Anomaly Detector, Comparator, Funnel and Stage Component. Dashboards are shared as Only me, All users or Custom, and a locked dashboard can only be modified by its creator and CRM admins.

Dashboard filters (User, Date, Date time and Picklist fields) apply to the whole dashboard; component filters apply to one component, with a maximum of two filter fields per component.

Source: Zoho Help: Create a dashboard

Getting reports to people who do not open the CRM

Zoho says reports can be scheduled daily, weekly, monthly or yearly and delivered by email, Cliq or Cisco Webex. Email recipients can be picked by role, group, territory and more, with up to 50 extra email addresses, and the file arrives as an XLS attachment. A scheduled report can include at most 2,000 records, and you need the Schedule report permission in your profile.

Source: Zoho Help: Scheduling reports

Limits worth knowing before you promise a board pack

• Zoho lists up to 2,000 rows for a formatted export and 50,000 for a detailed export of a report, with daily detailed-export limits that vary by edition.
• Zoho says a report sent by email selects at most 2,000 rows.
• On dashboards, an ungrouped download is capped at 50,000 records and a grouped download at 2,000.

Source: Zoho Help: Understanding and building reports, Zoho Help: Create a dashboard

Deciding what to measure (practical advice)

This section is advice from experience, not vendor documentation.

• Write down the five questions the owner or sales manager asks most often. Build those reports first and delete the rest.
• Check that the fields behind each question are actually filled in. A beautiful dashboard on empty fields misleads.
• Give each dashboard one audience and one purpose, rather than one dashboard for everyone.
• Schedule the one weekly report people ask for by email, so it stops being a manual task.
• If the data underneath is inconsistent (free-text fields, duplicates, unused stages), fix that before polishing the dashboard.

Need reporting designed around how you sell?

Skyfall Labs can review your fields, stages and reports and rebuild the reporting around the decisions you make. Because we are a Zoho Partner, treat our view with the interest we have disclosed.