A recent request (thanks, Paul!) led me down a path I didn’t expect. How do you create a Delete Lead role in the Web Administrator? Because the existing Entities/Lead/Delete secured action is already created for us, I assumed that I would simply follow these steps:

1. Remove the Entities/Lead/Delete secured action from the Standard User role.
2. Create a Delete Lead role.
3. Assign the Entities/Lead/Delete secured action to the new role.
4. Assign a designated user to the new role.

While those steps are valid, it’s missing a very important piece! The out-of-the-box Entities/Lead/Delete secured action—and a few others—aren’t assigned to an interface item. To fix any of those out-of-the-box secured actions, you need to go into Application Architect, locate the interface item that you want to restrict, and then assign the appropriate secured action to it using the Applied Security property. After building and deploying your changes, then you can proceed with the steps above. This fix applies to Sage SalesLogix versions v7.5.3 (with the Admin Accelerator bundle) and v7.5.4.

For more information, check out this video I created to step you through the process.

For more video tips like this one—including a neat trick for creating a custom Librarian role in the Web Administrator—visit the Sage SalesLogix Administrator’s Subscription. Inside the subscription, you can also download an electronic workbook for using the Web Administrator tools.

We received a blog request to provide a detailed explanation of the metrics and dimensions that are available with each content type (i.e. widget or chart). Great question, Janetta! Unfortunately, my answer probably isn’t as great as the question because of the sheer number of combinations. Out-of-the box, Sage SalesLogix allows you to create a new widget using data from 1 of 12 different entities: Account, Campaign, Contact, Contract, Defect, History, Lead, Opportunity, Product, Return, Sales Order, or Ticket. Moreover, the available options for Metric and Dimension vary for each entity—there are 106 total metrics/dimensions—which means that we could create 226 unique charting widgets! (Here’s the complete list if you want to check my math.) I’m getting dizzy just thinking about that many widgets. Instead, let’s just start with the Account entity and develop a pattern that we can apply to other entities.

For starters, think of the Dimensions (D) as “buckets.” Inside those buckets is the Metric (M). For example, let’s pick Account Manager (D) and Total Revenue (M):

What does that mean? We’ve just created a bunch of Account Manager (D) buckets into which we’ll sort all of the 287 revenue values (M) that we find under the All Accounts group. When we’ve collected all the values, we’ll come up with a total for each bucket:

Now we need to choose a content type so we can compare the results. Here are the available options:

• Bar Chart (horizontal bars, Dimension on y axis)
• Column Chart (vertical bars, Dimension on x axis)
• Line Chart (data points connected by a line, Dimension on x axis)
• Pie Chart (portions of the whole in pie-shape)
• Funnel Chart (portions of the whole in funnel-shape)

How do we know what option to pick? Here is some criteria I use:

Spacing

Bar, Column, and Line charts always display up to the top 10 values in the Dimension (i.e. Top 10 Account Managers, Top 10 Cities, Top 10 Industries, and so on). Some Dimensions might not have 10 values (i.e. Account Subtype). For those kinds of Dimensions, a Bar chart works fine. But if you know you have at least 10 values in the dimension, Line and Column charts seem to provide better visual spacing than the Bar. In this example, between the Line and Column charts, I would choose Column because the Line seems to give the illusion of a trend, which isn’t appropriate for the Metric/Dimension that we chose.

Relationship

The Pie chart lists either 5 or 10 values in the Dimension and shows how the parts relate to the whole. A Funnel chart also shows relationship to the whole, but it is typically reserved only for charts that query on sales processes (i.e. Opportunity entity) because its parts represent a sequence of stages in your sales pipeline. In this example, the Pie chart would be appropriate, but I would not use the Funnel chart.

Do you have any other tricks for designing widgets? What other examples would you like to see?

At Sage SalesLogix Boot Camp 2010, Jason Huber presented on widgets, and I helped with the curriculum. In the presentation we included two exercises:

1. Configure a dashboard widget (very basic end user stuff)
2. Create a custom widget (very intense developer stuff)

It turns out that we missed the middle! How do you allow your end users to configure a dashboard widget from a custom entity? Easy: Use entity filters! Here are a few things to remember:

• Each widget requires 1 Group, 1 Dimension, and 1 Metric. This means that if your custom entity does not have a main view, you need to create one so that you can set up groups.
• A Dimension is a filter that has a type of Distinct or Range.
• A Metric is a filter that has a type of Analtyics Metric Definition or Analytics Date Differencing Metric Definition.
• Set the Available for Analytics property to True in order to see your filter in the widget.

I created a video to show you a great example of 4 different widgets using a variety of dimensions and metrics for an “Expense” entity. As usual, Jason came up with the example, and presented it as part of his Sage Summit session this week. Now it’s yours, too!

It’s time to enhance your workflow by pairing the SaleLogix you know-and-love on your PC with the SalesLogix you-will-come-to-love on your mobile device! Although the mobile version* provides the same tools to build relationships and remain connected with your business, the interface differs slightly from the familiar PC experience. Want to learn the tips and tricks? Take 14 minutes to watch this Sage SalesLogix Mobile training video. (Click http://slxtraining.net/newmobile to watch from your mobile device.)

You’ll learn how to:

• Configure settings and keep local storage for offline data access.
• Quickly enter data (like adding a new account and contact).
• Easily link to different pages with the fewest taps/touches.
• Create notes to record phone calls and e-mail messages.**
• Use hash tags to search for a group of records in list view.

Let us know if you’re satisfied with the new Sage SalesLogix Mobile experience!

**In order to use the Record to History feature, you must access Sage SalesLogix Mobile from within your mobile device’s native browser application.