Learn To Create, Organize And Customize Your HubSpot Sales Dashboard
Seeing numbers in your data can be boring and monotonous, especially when you handle numerical data every day. So how about adding figures, colors, and charts to make comprehending the data fun and easier? That’s exactly what HubSpot’s sales dashboard does for you. It makes understanding the data simpler by adding visual elements to it. Making a sales dashboard allows the team to plan the course of actions beforehand and you can identify the risks and the loopholes to reach better decision-making.
Curious to know more about the HubSpot sales dashboard and its various intricacies? Then, read on.
What is the HubSpot dashboard?
HubSpot dashboard is a collection of HubSpot reports that you can organize into one view. HubSpot allows you to create different dashboards for different reporting purposes. So you can create a dashboard that is focused on a single area like sales that will allow you to conveniently examine your KPIs and analytics, for example, a HubSpot marketing dashboard or a HubSpot sales dashboard.
What is HubSpot sales dashboard?
The HubSpot sales dashboard is a collection of sales reports such as deal revenue forecast, team activity totals, and so on. So, basically, this type of dashboard allows users to see a visual depiction of their sales data.
It enables you to make focused insights that are based on sales performance. You can filter the data according to different time periods and also look at real-time data. These features add to the versatility of the sales dashboard.
Why do you need HubSpot sales dashboard?
The sales dashboard in HubSpot is useful when it comes to taking important decisions concerning your business, as well as when you are evaluating your sales performance or the performance of your sales team. Reports collected on a dashboard provide you with the most actionable weapon that a salesperson or a marketing manager can have – the metrics.
Different sales metrics are raw or already processed data that lets you get a birds-eye view of how your sales pipelines operate. You will be able to see any potential leaks or if the pipeline may even be broken. So, having a sales dashboard means having an instrument for data-driven decisions which are crucial for effective sales management.
How to add a new sales dashboard in HubSpot?
- Go to your HubSpot account, click on Reports, and select Dashboards from the drop-down menu.
- Now, navigate towards the upper-right corner and click Create Dashboard.
- On the left-hand side, you will see various forms of dashboards like marketing, CMS, sales, etc. Choose the Sales option from there. You will now be taken to the sales dashboard library.
- You will see a few pre-made sales dashboard templates:
- Sales – 5 reports on your deals and sales.
- Sales Manager – 8 reports on your sales team performance.
- Sales Opportunity Review – 9 reports on the overall sales performance.
- Sales Rep – 6 reports on the monthly sales performance.
Select the one you prefer and click on it.
- You will now be directed toward the right panel which will show you the reports included in the chosen dashboard. If necessary, you can unselect the reports that are not needed. After making the desired selections, click Next.
- Name your HubSpot sales dashboard and configure the access parameters:
- Private to owner (me)
- Everyone
- View and edit
- View only
- Only specific users and teams
At the bottom right corner, click Create dashboard.
Your dashboard is now ready!
How to customize my new sales dashboard in HubSpot?
HubSpot gives you the competency to customize your dashboard. You can add new reports and make changes to them.
Right on top of the access option, you will find the Actions drop-down menu. From this menu, you can give the authorized user, the ability to make changes or customize the dashboard.
- Insert image, video, or text: This allows you to add notes in that dashboard, which is explained in the next section.
- Clone: This option allows you to clone a particular dashboard. After selecting the dashboard, click on the Clone option. In the right panel, give the Dashboard name and decide who will have access to it from the options. Then select Clone Dashboard and your dashboard would be cloned.
- Copy dashboard URL: Select this option so that you can share this dashboard with other users.
- Email this dashboard: You can email this dashboard to anyone by selecting this option.
- Edit name and description: You can edit the description and name of your dashboard by clicking on this menu, once you are done, just click save.
- Set as default dashboard: This option allows you to make a dashboard your default one. Once you select this option, this dashboard would be shown to you as soon as you you log in.
Does the sales dashboard in HubSpot allow me to rename, copy or delete reports?
Yes, HubSpot allows you to rename, copy/clone as well as delete reports. This can be done by following the below-mentioned steps:
- Move your cursor over the desired Report in which you want to make changes.
- Now, click on the drop-down menu in the upper-left corner.
- To rename a report: Just click on the Rename option from the drop-down menu. In the new dialogue box that appears, rewrite the name and then click on the Rename Report option.
- To copy/clone a report: Choose the report that you want to copy or clone. In the new dialogue box that appears, choose a name for your new report. You are given the option here to add the cloned report to a new dashboard or to an existing one. For this, click on Clone to existing/new dashboard.
- To delete report: Choose the report that you want to delete. In the actions drop-down menu, just select the Delete option. This will delete your report completely from your dashboard as well as your HubSpot account.
Is it possible to add notes to the sales dashboard in HubSpot?
Yes, you can add notes to your sales dashboard. This will allow you to add extra information, instruction, insights, or content for your team and for you as well, for the next time you see this dashboard. In order to add notes, just go through the following steps:
- Now, navigate towards the upper-right corner where you have to select the Actions drop-down menu.
- Choose the Insert images, text or video option.
- Hereafter, in the notes field, you can enter the desired type of content. The toolbar will help you to do so.
- Once you are done adding notes, click on the Insert option. This action will add them to the dashboard and will give you and your team insights of the dashboard the next time you open it.
Can I build a sales Dashboard outside HubSpot and why would I need this?
As we mentioned above, the premade HubSpot sales dashboards offer a limited number of reports. Of course, you can add custom reports, but anyway, you won’t be able to go beyond the customization options supported by HubSpot.
To overcome this limitation, you can build a sales dashboard outside of HubSpot using a spreadsheet app or a data visualization tool. This will let you customize reports and metrics on your dashboard and tune them according to your vision. Moreover, you can make your dashboard self-updating without any coding solution applied.
Steps to build a sales dashboard outside of HubSpot
Choose a tool to build a sales dashboard
You can build your dashboard in a spreadsheet app, such as Google Sheets or Excel, in a dataviz tool, such as Looker Studio (Google Data Studio) or Tableau, or use another software tailored for creating reports and dashboards, such as Klipfolio or Zoho Analytics.
Define the metrics for the dashboard
For defining metrics, you can directly jump on your organization’s goal. Since the sales dashboard gives you the ability to check the progress of your goals, therefore, current goals must be referred to. The perfect sales dashboard should contain some of the following metrics:
- Leads by source – gives you an understanding of where your customers are coming from
- Open cases – Gives you an understanding of when visitors initiate contact
- Open opportunities – You can track your leads with this metric
- Sales cycle – You can track the duration taken by your salesperson to win a deal
- Pipeline – You can analyze the open opportunities here
- Product gap – It helps you analyze the predictions versus the actual performance
- And others
Integrate HubSpot with the chosen tool
The sales dashboard built outside of HubSpot needs to be integrated with the HubSpot data. Manual export of information from HubSpot won’t do here since you’ll have to spend much time on this tedious task. So, you’ll need to use a HubSpot integration with the tool where you’re going to build a dashboard.
For example, if you’ve chosen Google Sheets or Excel, you can use Coupler.io to automate the load of your HubSpot data. You can schedule your export as per your convenience like every 15 minutes or so. This will make your dashboard self-updating. The same goes for data viz tools. You easilt also use Coupler.io to connect HubSpot to Looker Studio or PowerBI and build your dashboard there. Here’s an example of what you can get:
You can use the dashboard above to build your own HubSpot dashboard in Looker Studio in just a few minutes. To do so, to the HubSpot CRM Dashboard template and click on the Readme tab. You will just need to create a Coupler.io account and connect your HubSpot and Looker Studio accounts. Then, you will get a copy of this dashboard with your data.
If you want to build a dashboard in a spreadsheet app or in Tableau, you can do so by setting up an integration with Excel or Google Sheets. Read the instructions below for more details.
The workflow to set up a Hubspot integration with Google Sheets consists of three steps:
- Source configuration – you’ll need to connect your HubSpot account and select the data entity for export.
- Destination configuration – you’ll need to connect your Google or Microsoft account and specify the file to load HubSpot data.
- Schedule configuration – you’ll need to customize the frequency for automatic data refresh.
Coupler.io will also work if you’re building a sales dashboard in a data visualization tool. For example, a Hubspot integration with Excel will let you use Power BI as an option; exporting data from Hubspot to BigQuery can be used for building a dashboard in Google Data Studio, and so on.
If you go with a dedicated reporting tool, it may already provide direct HubSpot integrations, however, the cost for these may be rather pricey.
Build the sales dashboard
We can’t explain how you can build a sales dashboard since we don’t know which tool you prefer. However, if your choice is Google Sheets or Data Studio, check out our other blog posts where you can find some inspiration or guidance for your process.
Related Posts
And here are some tips that may be useful for you:
- Your reports can be based on comparisons or compositions or trends.
- It’s good to compare data from two different periods to understand the various segments of your metric.
- Always make good use of graphics rather than overcrowding the data with colors and graphs.
- Advanced calculations will let you get more of the regular sales metrics.
- When you make your dashboards accessible to the team, you promote transparency within the team.
Make the dashboard self-updating
This part mostly depends on the solution you use for integrating your sales dashboard with the HubSpot data. For example, with Coupler.io, it’s enough to toggle on the automatic data refresh and customize the frequency for data updates. You can decrease the frequency down to every 15 minutes if required. However, the most popular option is to update the dashboard every hour on business days.
Sales dashboards built inside and outside HubSpot
So, should I go with the sales dashboard offered in HubSpot out of the box, or is it better to tailor a custom one outside? The following table will give you a deeper understanding.
| Pros | Cons | |
| Outside | ||
| Inside |
To sum up – if you are totally fine with what HubSpot gives you to analyze your sales performance, then keep it. At the same time, this option won’t be a good fit for growing businesses that accumulate tons of data with every sale they perform. Sooner or later, they will need to switch to a more advanced solution to monitor and stay on top of their sales pipeline health. And when this time comes, you know what you can do – build a sales dashboard outside of HubSpot 🙂 Good luck with your data!
