Chapter 12: Embedding and Actioning Your Insights

The secret sauce of CRMA compared to any other data analytics tool or platform is the ability to easily embed your dashboards in Salesforce and action insights directly from a chart or table. This increases user adoption and delivers great value from an investment in CRMA. In my opinion, the embedded and actionable functionalities of CRMA are its most neglected product features.

This chapter will teach you how to embed your analytics in the business workflow and make your insights actionable in the Salesforce CRM, enabling your organization to get the most out of CRMA.

We'll cover the following topics in this chapter:

• Creating and configuring record actions in CRMA
• Embedded dashboards

Technical requirements

You will need the following to successfully execute the instructions in this chapter:

• The latest version of the Google Chrome browser (Chrome is the preferred browser when working with CRMA)
• A working email address

Be sure to be logged into your CRMA dev org.

Let's begin with record actions.

Creating and configuring record actions in CRMA

Simply put, a record action enables you to action a record. This means that you do not need to jump from CRMA into Salesforce, export a report to Excel, or perform any other clumsy workaround to action your insights – you can action them directly from a CRMA dashboard.

Let's look at actioning Salesforce records using configured record actions.

Configured record actions

The best way to understand this is to walk through a hands-on exercise. We are going to configure a record action in the dashboard that you created earlier, My First Dashboard. Follow these steps:

1. Open My First Dashboard and go into Edit mode.
2. Create a values table from the Opportunities dataset. Be sure to include the Opportunity Name field.
3. Add the table to the bottom of your dashboard.
4. Click on Save.

Your dashboard will now look like this:

Figure 12.1 – My First Dashboard with the record...

Embedded dashboards

The ability to easily embed a dashboard in Salesforce is one of the distinguishing features of CRMA. It sets CRMA apart from the crowd of BI tools out there. Let's see why it is important.

Why would you embed your dashboards?

One of the great struggles in the world of data analytics and business intelligence is user adoption. It is often the case that organizations spend hundreds of hours and many thousands of dollars on capturing, analyzing, and visualizing, only for the project to fail miserably because business users simply don't use and apply the insights.

One way to address poor user adoption is to embed the insights in front of the user in the CRM workflow, where they will inevitably view the dashboards as they work in their Business As Usual (BAU) environment. This is very different, and much more effective, than asking users to remember to review dashboards during their busy workdays, even if they are only a tab away in Salesforce. It...

Summary

What did you learn in this chapter? First, you learned how to create record actions for your CRMA dashboard. Then, you gained some insight into how to kick off automations in Salesforce from a CRMA dashboard. Third, I explained why embedded dashboards are a powerful aid to dashboard adoption. Finally, you learned how to embed a CRMA dashboard on a Salesforce record page.

I trust that this book has been a help to you, wherever you may be on your CRMA journey. I encourage you to dive into the platform and use it in real-world use cases, because the best way to learn is to solve problems, build assets, and deliver solutions. Make sure that you get involved in the vibrant CRMA online community, and avail yourself of the many great online resources available for CRMA.

Please feel free to reach out to me via LinkedIn with any feedback or questions about my book or CRMA in general. I would love to hear from you!

Questions

Answer the following questions to test your learning from this chapter:

• How do embedded dashboards aid user adoption of CRMA?
• Give three examples of configured record actions supported in CRMA.
• What is the purpose of the dashboard filter when embedding a CRMA dashboard via the Lightning App Builder?
• Give one example of how you can drive an automation in Salesforce from CRMA.