I spent several years as what I would call an “Outside Salesperson”. My job meant I spent my days on the road, meeting customers and trying to close business. So, in order to be successful, I spent my morning having that first cup of coffee and reviewing my plans for the day. Those plans start with the Home Tab, and so thats where we’ll start today.

The Home Tab will be, for most default user types, will look something like this:

Home Tab - Annoted Screen Shot

There are several important areas, and I have highlighted the ones that I think are most important at this moment.

  • The Tab Strip - Shown across the top of the screen, this is primary navigational interface. As today’s post is focused on the perspective of the Salesperson, the most important tabs for us are - Home, Leads, Accounts, Contacts and Opportunities.
  • The Calender - This area of the interface will show us events scheduled for today and into the future. Right now we have no events scheduled.
  • The Task List - This area of the interface is our To Do List. This will show us a list of all of our current tasks (To Do Items).
  • Sidebar - On the left side of the interface, this shows us our company logo (it should, unless our Admin hasn’t changed it yet), a search tool, a quick start tool, a list of recent items, the recycle bin, a list of system messages and finally some links.

Right now, things look pretty empty, but in part 2 we will begin to add some information and look at how to use the home tab effectively.