Your KPI dashboard can do more than just show static numbers. It can tell you three different stories:
- What has already happened
- What’s happening right now
- What is expected to happen next
Those stories correspond to historical, real-time, and forecast reporting modes.
Historical Reporting: Looking Back
Historical reports are all about past performance. They answer questions like:
- How many leads did we generate last month?
- How many offers were accepted in the last 30 days?
- What revenue did we actually collect over a given period?
These views are helpful when you’re reviewing results, spotting trends, or comparing performance month over month.
Real-Time Reporting: Seeing the Present
Real-time reporting focuses on where things stand right now. It uses the current state of your records to show:
- How many leads are active today
- How many offers exist in the system at this moment
- How many deals are currently under contract
- What’s scheduled to close in the near term
These reports are ideal for daily huddles and keeping a live pulse on your pipeline.
Forecast Reporting: Planning Ahead
Forecast reports use date fields and expected values to show what’s likely to happen in the near future. Typical questions they answer:
- How much expected revenue is scheduled in the next 30 days?
- How many appointments are upcoming?
- How strong is our pipeline looking for the next few weeks?
Forecasting doesn’t guarantee outcomes, but it gives you a realistic picture of what’s in motion.
Choosing the Right Mode in a Report
In most KPI report editors you’ll see an option to define what kind of time logic you want:
- Open Settings → KPI Dashboard.
- Create or edit a KPI report.
- The Timeline option that lets you choose whether the report is Historical, Real-Time, or Forecast.
- Select the mode that matches the question you’re trying to answer.
- Save the report.
You can use the same underlying data in different modes in separate reports—for example, one historical, one real-time, and one forecast—then put each on different dashboards.