Getting Around
Log in, understand the CRM layout, and learn how records, lists, views, and dashboards fit together.
After this lesson you'll be able to log in, recognize everything on the screen, open a record, move between views, understand where dashboards get their numbers, and find the assistant.
Why this matters: ANC's business is long-cycle venue work — an LED display project at an NFL stadium or an NBA arena can run from first conversation to substantial completion across years, with sales, estimating, installation, and service all touching the same account. The CRM is the one place that whole story lives. If you can move around it confidently, you can answer almost any "where does this stand?" question in under a minute. If you can't, you're asking someone else — and they're looking it up in the same place.
First week on the job
Situation
A teammate pings you: a client at a major arena is asking about their renewal, and the person who owns the account is traveling.
Goal
Open the Company record, see the open opportunities, find the right contact, and read the last note — without asking anyone where to click.
Proof
You can say who owns the account, what stage the renewal is in, and what the last activity was.
How the CRM is laid out
- 1
Left menu: choose the object or saved view.
- 2
Middle list: sort, filter, and open the record.
- 3
Record page: update the source truth.
- 4
Dashboard: read the rollup after records are clean.
1. Logging in
- Go to crm.ancsports.net.
- Sign in with your work email.
- If you land on a plain, empty-looking screen, look at the top-left and switch to the ANC workspace — that's where all your views and folders live.
2. The layout
Once you're in, here's what you're looking at:
- Left side — the menu. This is how you move around: Opportunities, Companies, People, and your saved views. Click any of them to open that list.
- The middle — the list. Rows of records (for example, all your opportunities), with columns across the top.
- Open a record. Click any row to open its full page — all its details, history, and related items in one place.
- The assistant button. Look for the Ask AI button — that's the assistant (we call it Scout). You type a plain-English request and it does the work. More on that in Meet the Assistant.
That's the whole shape of it: menu on the left, a list in the middle, columns across the top. Every area — Companies, People, Opportunities — looks like this, so once you know one, you know them all.
3. The main record types
You will see the same few record types again and again:
- Companies — accounts, venues, teams, partners, sponsors, and client organizations. In ANC's world a Company is usually a team, a venue operator, or a sponsor.
- People — contacts tied to those companies.
- Opportunities — deals, bids, renewals, pipeline items, and booked work.
- Tasks — follow-ups, reminders, and assigned next actions.
- Notes — the written history of what happened, what changed, and what should happen next.
How they connect is the important part: a Company holds everything. Open a Company and you'll see its People, its Opportunities, its tickets, and its notes as related sections on the same page. That's deliberate — leadership thinks account-first ("what's our whole relationship with this organization?"), so the Company page is built to answer that in one screen.
One thing that trips people up
What the old system called Opportunities is shown here the same way — Opportunities. Same thing you've always worked with, same word. Nothing new to learn there.
4. Lists, records, and dashboards
The CRM has three working levels:
- Lists help you find and sort records. A list can be sliced into saved views — the same records, pre-filtered for a job: your pipeline, this week's proposals, won work awaiting handoff.
- Records are where the truth lives. Every field on a record — stage, owner, close date, amount, Bid Status — feeds everything above it.
- Dashboards summarize the records. They're read-only rollups of whatever the records say.
If a dashboard number looks wrong, do not fix the dashboard. Open the records behind it and fix the source fields. A forecast chart showing a deal in the wrong vertical means one field on one opportunity is wrong — fix that field and the chart fixes itself.
See behind a dashboard number
5. Make it yours — favorites
You don't have to hunt for the same things every day:
- Open a record or a view you use a lot.
- Click the star to add it to your Favorites.
- It now sits at the top of your menu — one click away, every time.
Pin without clicking
Common mistakes in week one
The three early habits to avoid
- Editing in a view and assuming it's cosmetic. Views show live fields — changing a value in a list changes the record for everyone.
- Creating a record before searching. If the Company already exists under a slightly different name, you've just split its history in two. Search first, always.
- Trusting a dashboard over the record. The record is the source; the dashboard is the mirror. When they disagree, the record wins — and usually one of its fields needs fixing.
What good looks like
You're done with this lesson when, without help, you can: log in and land in the ANC workspace; name what the left menu, the list, and a record page each do; open a Company and point at its related opportunities, people, and notes; switch between two saved views on Opportunities; explain in one sentence why you fix records instead of dashboards; and find the Ask AI button.
Now you try →
Open the CRM, switch to the ANC workspace, click into Opportunities, open any record, identify the linked company and contacts, then star one view you think you'll use.
Related lessons: Working Standard · The Daily Basics · Finding Anything Fast
Key takeaways
- Menu on the left, list in the middle, record page for the truth — every area works the same way.
- The Company page is the account hub: opportunities, people, tickets, and notes in one place.
- Dashboards mirror records. Fix the source field, never the chart.
- Star what you use daily; the Ask AI button is always there when clicking is slower.
Check yourself
A dashboard shows a deal counted under the wrong business unit. What do you do?