Many ACT! users love the Dashboards because they provide a visual overview of a business. Although some companies evaluate employee performance on their activities, most companies prefer to judge their employees on their ability to reach sales goals. Using the various opportunity components allows both employees and the employer to immediately see how close a sales person is to reaching their goals. In addition, the opportunity components allow the business owner to easily track the company's pipeline.
Needless to say, if you're going to view an opportunity component you'll want to make sure that it contains data. Therefore, you'll want to make sure that you have added a number of opportunities to your ACT! database. And, because there are a number of different opportunity components you'll want to make sure that your opportunities encompass most of your existing sales stages and include a good sampling of your company's product line.