Salesforce Dashboards and the Nonprofit Stories They Tell

It’s essential for nonprofits to regularly report on data and to routinely identify and track important metrics. If you struggle to make sense of your reports, and you’re looking for a new way to visually tell the story of your nonprofit, then I recommend digging into the Salesforce’s built-in Dashboard feature.

Dashboards provide you with a graphical view of your report data, helping you visualize and use your data to draw out actionable insights. Whether you need to show your progress towards a goal, track key performance indicators, or gather monthly stats to share in your newsletter, the dashboard is your key to quickly telling the story.

How Do Dashboards Work?

Dashboards simply take the data from an existing Salesforce report (or multiple reports!), and display them visually, with lots of different types of charts and graphs to choose from. What’s even more exciting is that they are designed to be user-friendly and customizable to fit your needs. For example, a land trust can create a graph about the different acquisition types of their properties, or track Monitoring progress with a gauge about Stewardship Activities.

Setting Up Dashboards

Dashboards like the one below are super easy to set up.

First select the source report for your dashboard component.

Then choose the kind of graph you want to use (table chart, gauge, donut, etc).

The same report can be used to build multiple graphs, allowing you to view your data in different ways, and more easily spot trends.

For example, the two components in the dashboard below both use the same underlying report to provide different ways for a Land Trust to consider progress towards a goal. On the left, a funnel shows how many properties have had Monitoring reports prepared with a breakdown of their status. On the right a gauge tracks how many total properties have been monitored relative to the total. For other kinds of nonprofits, you can imagine the same set of components showing the status of various programs on the left and a total number of programs delivered on the right. At a glance, you’ve got a great visual story for your annual report or your next Board meeting.

Drag and Drop It on Your Page

You can add multiple graphs to the same dashboard so your visuals on a particular topic are all in one place. This makes sharing your dashboard with your Board, or other staff members simple and streamlined.

Add Filters

In addition to filtering the reports themselves, you can set up filters for the whole dashboard, making it easy to quickly drill down to relevant information. Filters allow you to view a specific subset of data such as a particular time period or program type.

Lastly, set it to “Active” so you can share.

You can control who gets to view your creation. Once you’re satisfied (and you’ve checked your work!), share it with the rest of your team. Users can also subscribe to receive dashboard updates by email!

(Note that Dashboards still respect regular Salesforce permissions – a user can only view information they have access to via their profile or permission set. For example, if your user can’t access Opportunities, then you won’t be able to run or access a report on Opportunities – even if another user shares a report with you.)

Key takeaways for understanding dashboards:

• Configure with drag-and-drop configurations and built-in graphics.
• Customize data and layout; allows users to add or remove display parameters.
• Display data from custom source reports.
• View real-time data instantly, automatically.
• Users can subscribe to dashboards for scheduled automatic emails.

When you’re done, you’ll have a great visualization of your organization’s data, and will be ready to show it off and tell your story!

If you have an idea for a great dashboard but want help setting it up, contact us at your support email or consider signing up for Salesforce Ongoing Support.

Resource List

Salesforce Dynamic Gauges for Visualizing Goals
Reports & Dashboards for Lightning Experience Trailhead
Create a Dashboard Trailhead
Reports and Dashboards with Nonprofit Success Pack Trailhead