A dashboard is useful when it helps you make a decision. A page full of numbers can still leave you wondering what to do next.
Ariyel Reports lets you arrange live contact and deal summaries on a configurable canvas. You choose the question, the records, and the way to display the answer.
For a first report, keep the question practical: what does our sales pipeline look like, and where should we investigate further?
Start with three questions
You might want to know how many open opportunities the team has, how pipeline value is distributed across stages, and how records have progressed through your sales process. Those are three related questions, but they need different elements.
Open Reports → New report. From Elements, add Number, Chart, Funnel, Text, or Divider. Arrange and resize them so someone reading the report can follow its logic.
Use a number for an open-deal count, a chart for value by stage, and a funnel for progression. Add text that explains what is included. The title “Open opportunities” is more useful than “Total” when another teammate opens the report next week.
Choose the records behind each element
Report data comes from Contacts or Deals. Choose All Records or use Specific Records to define matching conditions. For open opportunities, filter to the stages your workspace treats as open.
Each element has its own scope. A number counting open deals and a chart including closed deals will answer different questions even when they sit beside each other. Review the filters on both.
Changing an element's source resets its filters and source-dependent field choices. Recheck them after switching from contacts to deals or back again.
Match the chart to the question
A Number element counts records. For a monetary summary such as pipeline value by stage, use a Chart with the appropriate numeric field and Sum.
Charts offer Bar and Pie visualizations. Numeric summaries also include Average, Median, Min, and Max, while Distinct counts unique non-empty values. Choose the calculation that matches the question you wrote down.
A bar chart of deal value by owner can help you discuss how opportunity value is distributed. It does not, on its own, measure effort or explain why an owner has a larger pipeline. Open the underlying records before drawing conclusions about performance.
Check empty values as well. Missing categories or summary values can change the totals the chart includes.
Read funnels correctly
Current stage shows where records sit now. Each record counts only in its present stage. Its percentages describe shares of the filtered group, including records in empty or excluded stages.
Historical progression shows records that reached or passed your selected stages. Skipped stages count, and moving backward does not erase recorded progress. Use one outcome, such as Won, as the end of that progression.
These calculations answer different questions. Today's stage distribution is not a conversion history. Historical progression also cannot recover changes from before that history existed, and numeric sums use current field values.
Label the calculation in the report so your team can interpret it consistently. This is the practical foundation behind finding problems in your pipeline.
Make it part of the review
Keep the first dashboard focused, use it in a team review, and open the records behind anything surprising. A useful report should lead to a clearer question or a next action.
Reports currently summarize contacts and deals. They do not pull task completion, fulfillment activity, course activity, or sequence sends into their data elements. Review those activities in their own areas of Ariyel.
Follow the Reports documentation to build your first canvas, and use saved views to keep the records you need for follow-up close at hand.