Overview

The Goals page is a tool that allows managers to create goals for their reps in order to make their expectations clear. Then, reps (and their managers) can track the progress of the goals based on concrete metrics that are tracked in the CRM. Like any good goal, the time period for successful completion can be set, along with detailed targets to meet the goal.

Some notes:

• Reps can also set goals for themselves - if they have been given the permission by an admin
• Goals can also be set for groups with all assignees contributing to goal completion - with multiple users you will be able to set varied targets per user
• It is likely that the first time you navigate to the Goals page it will be empty. Find some time to set some goals, or confer with your manager to set some goals.

 

 

Creating a new goal

Make sure you are on the Goals page by clicking on the "Goals" button in the left navigation.

• Click on the "New Goal" button near the top of the page.

 

A new goal will look similar to the image below. We have made some selections and filled in some fields.

Best Practice: Fill out every field.

Field Details

This section will provide details on each field.

 

Goal Type

You can set goals for orders, referrals, or events.

A few notes:

• Choosing a specific goal type will determine what goal filters are available. See Goal Filters, below.
• Once you create a goal for a specific goal type, you can't change the goal type. Not to worry, you can create as many goals as you want.
• As you create a goal, if you add a Goal Filter and then try to change the Goal Type, you will see the following error:

As the error indicates, you will need to remove any goal filters you have created before you can change the Goal Type

 

Goal Cycle

Select the length of the goal period for the goal you are creating.

If you want to set a goal for a specific time period, click on "Custom." You will then be able to set a specific start date and end date for the goal.

 

Goal Name

Once you have created a bunch of goals, you will be able to choose which one is open on your Goals page by using the selector near the top right of the page.

We only have two goals in our sample, and we have a good example and a bad example. We know what we will find if we open Chuck's goal, but the West-Side Team goal tells me little. 

The Goal Name field is empty when you create a new goal

Guidelines:

• Be as specific and concise as you can
• Include details that will identify and set apart goals when you scroll through the selection dropdown on the Goals page
• Suggestion - Include:
  • Name of user or team for whom the goal applies (those chosen as User's for the goal)
  • Goal Cycle - monthly, quarterly, etc
  • Goal Type - Orders, Referrals, or Events

 

Users and Goal Target

You are setting two items here but they interact, so we will consider them together

• Your "Target" is the count of orders, referrals, or events for the goal you are creating
  • Enter the number in the "Target" field
• Users will be the single user or group of users that you add by clicking on the "+ Add User" button.

Adding a user

• Click on the "+ Add User" button. This will open the Find User interface in the image below.

Some Notes If you have a large list of users, you can use the top interface to search by first name, last name, or email address. The table at the bottom will then include only users who match the search criteria. From the list at the bottom click on the checkbox to the far left of the row for the user you want to add to the goal. You can add as many users as you want to the goal you are creating. As you add users, pay attention to each user's details listed in the table, for example, Business Line. IF you are going to set a goal filter for Business Line make sure the users you select match the goal filter you are going to set.

 

Back to Targets and Users

Some notes:

• If you set the target first and then add users, the target number for each added user will will be set to the target you chose automatically
• If you add users first and then apply a target, you can click on the "Apply to all users" link to apply the target to all of the users

 

• Or, you can set different targets for each user, as the next image shows.

 

Repeat Goal

You can choose to have the goal reset automatically at the beginning of the next cycle, based on what you have chosen.

 

Notes

Any notes you enter here will be visible on the Goals page.

 

Goal Filters

A goal filter limits the results for your goal. As a quick example, imagine if you wanted your goal target to only count delivered orders instead of all orders. You could set a filter like this:

You can add any number of filters to further refine the results. If we wanted to only show orders that have been delivered for our Harrisburg Sales Territory, we would add this:

Tip: The order that you set up the filters matter. Each new filter row you add depends on the results from the previous row.

• To add a goal filter to the goal, click the "+ Add Filter" button.

Operator

Once you select the field you want to use as a filter, you will need to choose the operator. In short, you will use this to either include (equals) or exclude (not equal to) the value you choose.

Example: In the goal filter set in the order goal in the image below, when the operator is "equals" the filter will include only orders that have the delivered status. If we changed the status to "not equal to" delivered, the goal would include orders with any status other than delivered.

 

Different Fields depending on Goal Type

There are different fields available for use in the Goal Filters that depend on the Goal Type.

The following table shows the different fields available for each goal type.

Orders	Referrals	Events

Next, we will summarize

 

Business Line

The Business Line goal filter works the same way for Orders and Referrals.

• Select the business line you want to apply to the orders or referrals for the goal.

 

Insurance Type

The Insurance Type goal filter works the same way for Orders and Referrals.

• Select the insurance type you want to apply to the orders or referrals for the goal.

 

Status - Orders

The Values for the Status field are the same as the statuses you will see for orders on the Orders page. What you see in your CRM might differ from what is shown in the image below since the statuses your company uses might be different.

• Choose the order status you want to apply to the orders for the goal

Status - Referrals

You can set a goal filter to limit the goal to focus on referrals with a specific status. The example at the bottom of the page shows a way to use a referral status goal filter.

• Choose the order status you want to apply to the referrals for the goal

Branch

The Branch goal filter works the same way for Orders and Referrals.

• Select the branch you want to apply to the orders or referrals for the goal

Event Type

You can set the goal to focus on a specific event type. 

• Select the event type you want to apply to the events for the goal

Completion Status

Whether your reps are completing their events is a great way to keep track of their compliance with following the A.C.E. process.

• Select the completion status you want to apply to the events for the goal

Related Account

This goal filter is a little different in that you don't set a value for the field. This filter is used to identify whether the events are assigned to a specific account. It doesn't matter what is in the field, what matters is whether there is an entry in the field (is not null) or empty (is null)

Anyone who is following A.C.E. should not have any events with an empty field for related account.

 

 

Editing an Existing Goal

On the Goals page, you can see the current goal displayed in the dropdown on the right (in box).

If you want to edit the goal, click the "Edit Goal" button

 

The page below will open. It is identical to the page you would see when you create a goal, with one exception: you will not be able to change the Goal Type. (It is grayed out.)

 

• Make any changes you want to tweak or refine the goal
• Click the "Save" button when you are done.

 

Viewing a Goal

Once you have set up your goal, (if you have selected it) the details will show up on the Goals page.

Note: For the example below, we used the following goal filter

With NO filter the referral count (Total) will include both referrals and admits. We want the goal to be admits only. You will see how this works out below.

Details

 

Note the Goal Name at the top left. The person who created the goal is beneath.

 

Three black buttons

• New Goal - Click this button to create a new goal - see Creating a New Goal above.
• Edit Goal - Click this button to edit the currently opened goal - see Editing an existing goal above
• Delete Goal - Click this button to delete the currently opened goal

The "Goal" dropdown allows you to select which goal is being displayed on the Goals page.

 

Summary Goal Metrics - This section contains the basic metrics for the currently opened goal. At a glance you can see multiple important metrics, e.g. the target, the current completed (Total), percentage complete.

Note: Sales Rep Chuck has only 15 admits (Total) - he is only 37.5 % to his goal. See Helpful Charts.

 

Helpful Charts - These three charts provide a summary of the larger context.

Note: Above we noted that Chuck was only at 15 out of 40  admits. But if you look at the "Filtered Number of Referrals" chart you will notice that Chuck has 23 pending referrals. 

 

Goal Notes - These notes can be updated by editing the goal.

 

Goal Details - This is the same information as the top section, presented in a table form. 

If the goal has multiple users with different goal targets, it might help to use the "Sort by" dropdown to organize the entries in the table using a different order.

 

Trended Goals - If you set up the goal to repeat, A table will appear at the bottom that shows trended metrics for the goal. Since this is a new feature at the time of the writing of this article, we can't show you what it will look like - but it will be there....