If you're starting out with Sage CRM or have been using it for a short while but feel there's more you could be doing with it, then, this is the blog for you. In this series of blog articles, I'm going to share my experiences of learning Sage CRM, the highs, the lows and everything in between.

What I wanted to achieve was to display two gadgets on a dashboard that link to one another. The idea is that when I click on information listed in one gadget, for example a company name, the company's details will appear in the linked gadget, for example their telephone number and lead contact information.

There were three simple steps I needed to follow:

1. Creating a List of Companies
2. Creating a New Dashboard and adding the 2 gadgets
3. Linking the Gadgets

Step one: Creating a List of Companies
The first thing I had to do was to create the list of companies that I wanted to display information about on my dashboard. To create the list:

• I right-clicked on the Find menu button and selected Company from the popout list
• I Selected US East from the Territory drop-down list and clicked on the Find action button
• Once the list appeared, I clicked on the New Search button next to the Saved Search drop-down (see screen shot below)
• I named the list US East in the Saved Search details box that popped up and then clicked Save to save the list

Step two: Creating a New Dashboard
To create a new dashboard, I did the following:

• I clicked on the My CRM menu button, selected the Dashboard tab and clicked the Try the Interactive Dashboard hyperlink
• I clicked the New Dashboard button and selected the Create Dashboard option

• I named my Dashboard US East Territories so that I would know exactly what information was being displayed and clicked OK
• The Add Library Gadget dialog box popped up but I didn't want to include any of these additional gadgets, so I closed it
• To create my List gadget that would display the list of companies I created earlier, I clicked the Modify Dashboard button and selected Add New Gadget
• From the Gadget Wizard I selected the List icon
• I selected Company from the list of entities and clicked Next
• I scrolled down to the list of Saved Searches and selected the list I saved earlier, US East, and clicked Next
• I then selected the check boxes next to the columns that I wanted to display, which included Company Name, Phone and Territory, and clicked Next
• I chose Go to List or Report from the Drill Down field, and selected New Email from the Default Action box, then clicked Next. I chose New Email because I wanted to be able to email the contacts in my US East gadget directly from the dashboard
• Finally, I named the gadget US East Companies and clicked Finish

To create my Company Details gadget, I followed similar steps to those just listed with some differences:

• I clicked the Modify Dashboard button and selected Add New Gadget
• From the Gadget Wizard I selected the Record Summary icon
• I selected Company from the list of entities and clicked Next
• I then selected Company Summary Screen from the list and clicked Next
• I named the gadget US East Company Details and clicked Finish

I was then really pleased to see that both of my gadgets had appeared on my Interactive Dashboard.

Step three: Linking the Gadgets
To enable me to click on a company name in my List gadget and have the company details appear in my Company Details gadget, all I had to do was link them. To do this, I did the following:

• I clicked on the link icon in the child gadget i.e. the gadget that I wanted to filter my Company information. In this case, it was my US East Company Details gadget

• The Gadget Linking dialog box popped up and I selected the gadget title that appeared in the left-hand panel
• Once I did this the name of the other gadget appeared in the right hand panel. I selected this gadget name and clicked OK

When I clicked on a company name from my list of companies in my US East Companies gadget, their details appeared in my US East Company Details gadget. I was thrilled that my gadgets now linked and that it took very little effort to get me there.

Easy Rating
I found the whole process of creating my list by using the saved search function, creating my gadgets, and then linking them to each other, very straightforward. I can definitely say that when I successfully completed the task, I would have no issues going back and repeating the process.