Process Alignment
Jun 26, 2025
By Melanie Manning, Chief Operating Officer at Allegro Analytics
Have you ever been asked to report on data that simply doesn’t exist?
You may have heard the phrase “Garbage in, garbage out,” but sometimes the problem isn’t bad data - it’s no data at all. The quick fix is usually to track it manually in offline spreadsheets like Excel or Google Sheets. While spreadsheets are familiar, flexible and fast, they're also fragile - one mistyped value or deleted column can break the entire model.
Rather than relying on temporary workarounds, I encourage clients to capture data directly within the systems they already use. Spreadsheets can still play a role, especially as a prototyping tool, but they shouldn’t be the foundation of a long-term solution. By integrating data collection into the team’s daily workflows, you create structured, sustainable processes that support reliable reporting and long-term growth.
Here are a few real-world examples of how that shift can look:
1. Bring Sales Expectations Into the CRM
A sales leader who wants flexibility to add their "gut-feel" adjustment to forecast expected bookings: Instead of exporting pipeline data to a spreadsheet and applying manual adjustments to reflect their personal expectations, add a field in the CRM to capture 'Sales Leader Expectation'. Next incorporate that "over the top" forecast adjustment into your regular forecast process. This systematic change allows for validation rules, history tracking and integration into your forecast models. The data becomes structured, repeatable, and reportable.
2. Move Monthly Metrics to a Database
An operations leader who gets metrics calculated and emailed to them from finance: In companies where IT resources are spread thin, it can be necessary to create work-around processes. While offline metrics delivery can be a temporary fix, especially if they're derived from a trusted source, they are manually updated, full of version confusion and prone to error. A better solution? Automate metric calculations directly from source system data. By generating metrics directly from source systems, or source system data replicated in a data warehouse, you create a consistent, scalable source of truth that grows with your business.
3. Track Service Requests in Your Case System
A support team leader who is in need of support themselves: I’ve worked with teams overwhelmed by incoming requests but unable to quantify the workload. They think they need more headcount or automation - but they have no data to support it. Requiring that all requests go through a case system gives visibility into volume, request types, and bottlenecks. It highlights which teams, individuals and related services are generating the most need for support. With that insight, they can advocate for the resources they truly need with data to back it up.
Start Offline - But Don’t Stay There
To be clear, offline solutions aren’t the enemy. They can be great for prototyping. Before requesting changes to a system, use prototyping to simulate and test the process: add the proposed fields, track the data manually, and document what works (and what doesn’t). This helps uncover edge cases and gives IT a clear, thoughtful set of requirements when you’re ready to build the long-term solution properly.
What Becomes Possible with System-Sourced Reporting
Once the data lives in your systems - structured, complete, and captured in the flow of work - the next step is unlocking its potential through reporting. These aren’t just charts for leadership meetings.
Imagine that sales manager opening their dashboard to see real-time “Sales Leader Expectation” adjusted bookings forecast vs. quota. They can filter by region and product line to tell their story at any relevant level of detail. This structured approach enables more productive pipeline meetings, tighter alignment with finance, and stronger forecasting discipline without sacrificing the intuition that experienced sales leaders bring to the table.
With a systematic approach, the operations leader, looking for metrics to measure productivity across teams can have access to KPIs that refresh daily, hourly or real-time - from revenue pacing to churn risk to operational bottlenecks. They can drill into any metric, click through to the source, and make decisions based on timely facts, not outdated data.
Picture the customer support team viewing live workload distribution across reps, broken down by case category, resolution time, and volume trends for the year. Support team members can be measured for productivity and areas of expertise to better route future requests. With a single glance, managers know where to shift capacity or justify a headcount request with confidence.
If you want better reporting, build better inputs - and that starts with your systems
Take the time to prove out and document your requirements. Design human-centered processes intentionally and empower your teams to capture vital information as they go about the flow of their work. It takes upfront effort, but the result is scalable, reliable, and far more powerful than any offline file. In other words, let the spreadsheets be your sketchpad - but build your masterpiece in the systems that run your business.
About Allegro Analytics: We help busy business leaders align processes to drive clean data, uncover opportunities and drive action through impactful Tableau and Power BI reporting. For more information about how we can help your business evolve its reporting capabilities, email us at info@allegroanalytics.com.