There is a rule in business (and sometimes in other areas of life) that states that 80% of consequences can be attributed to 20% of causes. It is called the Pareto rule and can be applied in a business context, too. For example, it is not uncommon for 80% of the revenues to be driven by only 20% of the accounts. Whether your business abides by this rule can be proven with a Pareto chart, which also allows you to identify the accounts driving your sales.
For this chart, we will be using the Account object joined with the Opportunity object in Salesforce, but you can also do it only with the Opportunity object.
We will start by selecting only the data we need and the opportunities that have turned into revenues. To do this:
- Drag Stage into the Filters tab, as shown in Figure 6.1:
Figure 6.1: Add Stage filter for Closed Won
- Select Closed Won, as can be seen in Figure 6.2:
Figure 6.2: Stage filter set to Closed Won
- Click Ok.
Now it is time to start creating the chart. The steps are as follows: 1. Drag Id from the Accounts object to columns, as shown in Figure 6.3:
Figure 6.3: Drag ID to Columns
- Drag Amount into the Rows, as can be seen in Figure 6.4:
Figure 6.4: Drag Amount to Rows
- Click on the caret on the ID pill and select Sort, as shown in Figure 6.5:
Figure 6.5: Sort the ID field
- A new menu will now appear. Follow the steps in the order below:
a. On this menu, choose to sort by field.
b. Select Descending.
c. Select Amount from Field Name.
d. Select Sum, if not already selected.
e. Close the menu. - Your chart should look similar to the one below:
Figure 6.6: Chart sorted by Amount descending
- Click on the caret on the SUM(Amount) pill and select Add Table Calculation.
Figure 6.7: Add Running Total table calculation
A new menu will appear (Figure 6.8), follow the steps in the order below:
- Select Running Total from the Primary Calculation Type.
- Select Sum, if not already selected.
- Select Specific Dimensions from the Compute Using menu; make sure Id is selected.
- Tick Add Secondary calculation.
- Select Percent of Total from the Secondary Calculation Type.
- Select Specific Dimensions from the Compute Using menu; make sure Id is selected.
- Close the menu.
Figure 6.8: Running Total and Percent of Total calculations added
Your chart should look much different, as shown in the following figure.
Figure 6.9: Cumulative chart
We will use a reference line to understand where 80% of our sales line is. To add a reference line, follow these steps:
- Click on the Analytics tab next to Data, as shown in Figure 6.10:
Figure 6.10: Click on Analytics tab
- Select Constant Line, as can be seen in Figure 6.11:
Figure 6.11: Select Constant Line
- Drag it to the Table menu which now hovers on your chart, as shown in Figure 6.12:
Figure 6.12: Drag Constant Line to chart
- Type 0.8 in the menu that opens, as seen below:
Figure 6.13: Set value to 0.8