The document outlines effective sales analytics in Power BI, emphasizing the importance of accurate forecasting, robust visibility into the sales pipeline, and using appropriate metrics. It compares matrix reports to summary reports, providing guidance on data organization for dashboards and the significance of pipeline reports in analyzing sales performance. Key elements include tracking opportunities, visualizing regional targets, and understanding pipeline trends to drive informed decision-making and operational insights.

1. Sales Analytics In Power BI
Jen Stirrup
Data Whisperer,
Data Relish
Level: 300

2. Sales Analytics
Effective and accurate sales analytics in a Power BI dashboard will allow you to:
● Forecast accurately
● Have a robust visibility of the sales pipeline
● See the analysis and metrics about historic sales performance that will allow
you to drive future revenue

3. Useful Metrics
• When deciding on what sales metrics to
use and where to place them on your
dashboard.
• A visualization of how many deals people
have closed is a good place to start, for
example.

4. Matrix Reports vs Summary
• Matrix reports are similar to Summary
reports but allow you to group and
summarize data by both rows and
columns.
• A Matrix report will give you a much
better, more comprehensive overview of
your data than a summary report.

5. Matrix Reports vs Summary
• While they tend to be aesthetically clean
and easy to follow, some people are just
more comfortable with a Summary report.
• It’s best to go with a Matrix report if in any
doubt, as it gives you and your clients and
colleagues much more information and
scope for analysis.

6. How To Break Up Your Data
There are several ways you can organise your data in a Sales Analytics dashboard.
Which way is best for you depends on what your objectives are.
Here are some things to consider:
● Should you organise sales by specific sales colleagues or by teams? Or should you
be organising by region or territory instead? This should be tailored to however you
organise your sales team.
● Sales can be broken down by week, month, year, financial year, etc. Which of these
metrics should be used for each visual? When is a shorter / longer timescale more
appropriate?
It is also helpful to visually break up your data by using contrasting colours in
visualizations.

7. Pipeline Dashboard
A pipeline report helps sales analysts focus on impactful insights such as strategy, development and
planning. The information provided in the report benefits sales department manage sales funnel of
opportunities or velocity by stage of sales cycle.
It helps you see the number of opportunities created, a breakdown of opportunity values by customer
type, and the top opportunities by account.
You can compare actual performance to target performance and identify which opportunities are at a
more advanced stage, and primed for conversion.

8. Pipeline Shape
One of the most common ways to represent a pipeline shape is through a funnel chart.
While these are popular, and are good for getting an idea at a glance, they can be hard to
interpret if they don’t have numbers. They are not always the most informative.
However, they are good to have on your dashboard for the purposes of looking at once a
week or so. It helps us to understand the pipeline proportions, and what the pipeline might
look like by stage going forward.

9. Pipeline Dashboard
• Keep track of opportunities that are being
closed and ones that are still open
• Keep track of and analyze deals that are
in negotiation - ask yourself and your
team, are there ways to bring these
forward?

10. Pipeline Dashboard
• Visualizing sales makes them more
manageable and less likely to be pushed
on to the end of the month or the end of
the year.
• Split opportunities by month / stage, or
split by owner.

11. Pipeline Dashboard
• Summarise by region, sales team,
country, or colleague.
• Get a better idea of what your team is
doing, and a better idea of their habits -
whether that is as individuals, or as a
group.

12. Displaying Regional Targets
• Map visuals can be used to display
targets for certain territories.
• This can be paired with Regional
Manager performance in a way that
clearly shows who is above, on, or under
target.

13. Sales Performance Reports
• Sales performance report provides an
increased visibility and operational insight
into sales actuals, variances, and
forecasts. Sales performance across
various regions and countries can be
viewed.

14. Sales Performance Reports
• Clicking on graphics can filter down the
dashboard and give you any answers you
have about performance.
• It is also a useful method for picking up on
trends.

15. Top 10 Accounts With The Most Pipeline
If you ask a company what their top ten most important prospects /
customers are, they are likely to have an idea of the top 2 or 3, but not
more than that.
This visual is usually represented as a dashboard table that helps you
to prioritise your time. The number one account on the table may be
worth twice the amount as the account in second place, for example.
You should replicate this at the company level, region, and at the
individual salesperson level.

16. Long And Short Term Pipeline
Trends
• A long term pipeline trend, also known as
an ‘as-at report’, is a historical report that
shows figures ‘as-at’ the first of each
month. This works with the visuals
reflecting opportunities - changes in those
opportunities will be reflected in the as-at
report.

17. Long And Short Term Pipeline
Trends
• A short term pipeline trend looks at
shorter turnarounds, such as a week, a
month or even a day.
• It can add value when you have some
sort of marketing activity going on
• It is useful to show a short term trend will
reflect if this has happened or not.

18. Pipeline By Created Date
• Showing the total pipeline created in any
given month, and where it is currently.
• This is an important part of your
dashboard because you want to be able
to see a fairly steady ongoing contribution
to the pipeline throughout the chart.

19. Pipeline By Created Date
• This chart helps you to keep track of
these changes.
• Who is creating the pipeline?
• You don’t want to see opportunities
opened a long time ago (e.g., over a year
ago) still outstanding.

20. Sales vs. Targets KPIs
• Measuring performance against sales
targets should be a crucial feature of your
dashboard.
• It helps you to understand where you are,
how on track you are, and where to go
next.

21. Conversion Rates
• This can be indicative of what is going to
happen to the pipeline, and tells you
about your performance in terms of
turnaround. It’s a great chart to drill down
on and look at individual performances.
• You can display win rate by value and win
rate by count.

22. Conversion Rates
• It is arguably not best practice to rely on
this chart for predictions, however - it
should be used judiciously.

23. Deals Closing This Month
• Other charts on the dashboard will often
show or analyse the size and/or stage of
the pipeline - but what about the quality of
the pipeline?
• A table showing deals due to close this
month is a useful part of your dashboard
to help demonstrate this.

24. Deals Closing This Month
• It can effectively be used to show three
metrics - how long the deal has been
open (in days), number of days since the
last stage changed, and how many times
the close date has moved from one month
to the next.

25. Expected Revenue
Closed Won plus Weighted Pipeline
• This can be an effective part of your dashboard if you have enough data to be able to
make a prediction. It’s not always possible in the early stages to have an accurate
sales forecast, and it won’t always be the most nuanced as it is represented in a
binary way.
• It can, however, be a statistically accurate way of forecasting revenue, if the data is
accurate and represented well.

26. Where Are We Leaking Funnel?
• This amount can represent deals set to
closed lost in a certain time period, such
as the last 60 or 120 days. It can be a
good way to identify where you are losing
revenue and time.

27. Conclusion
• All the visuals and the data behind them
tell a story - when they are all put
together, they should build an accurate
picture.
• The charts don’t tell you the answer - they
tell you where to go and look for the
answer.