Sales dashboards reps actually look at (and the ones they ignore)
Most sales dashboards are built for executives. The dashboards reps actually open on their own look nothing like that — here's what belongs on the home screen.
Sales dashboards, in most CRMs, are built for executives. Funnel conversion. MRR trend. Team quota attainment. Beautiful, polished, and generally ignored by the people doing the actual selling.
The dashboards field reps actually open on their own look completely different.
What reps actually want on their home screen
**Deals that need attention today.** Not "all open opportunities." Specifically: which deals have gone quiet, which have a follow-up due, which are drifting in stage.
**Today's stops.** If the rep is in the field, the home screen should open to their route, not a graph.
**Commission-to-date.** Reps care about compensation. If they can see what they've earned this month in one tap, they'll open the app more often — which means they'll log more often — which means the data is better.
**Recent account activity.** Who touched which account in the last week. Not just the rep's own activity — the whole team's, because a customer support ticket or a marketing email can change a conversation the rep is about to have.
What reps don't want on their home screen
Funnel conversion rates. Quota attainment as a percentage of team total. Year-over-year growth graphs. These are management tools. They belong on management screens.
The design principle for rep dashboards
Every dashboard should answer a specific question the person looking at it has right now.
- For a VP on Monday morning: "how's the quarter going."
- For a rep on Tuesday afternoon: "what am I doing next."
Same underlying data. Two entirely different presentations. A field sales CRM that tries to serve both from one screen serves neither — and the rep is the one who loses, because they're the one who has to live in the tool eight hours a day.