Data Snapshot is easiest to understand through a concrete example rather than a feature list, so this article walks through building one from scratch for a common sales scenario, as a companion to our article on Data Snapshot in Zoho Analytics.

The Setup

Say a sales manager wants to see, month on month, how many Deals sit in each pipeline stage, Qualification, Proposal, Negotiation and Closed Won, so the team can spot where deals are getting stuck over time. A standard live report only ever shows today's picture, so last month's snapshot is gone the moment a Deal moves stage.

Step-by-Step Configuration

1. Build (or open) a report named Deals by Stage, grouping the Deals table by Stage and counting records in each group.
2. Open that report and select the Data Snapshot option.
3. In the Create New Snapshot screen, set the schedule to monthly, so the snapshot captures a new reading on the same date each month.
4. Set a retention period long enough to cover at least a full year of comparisons, for example 18 months, so year-on-year trends stay available.
5. Save the snapshot configuration and let it run through its first two or three scheduled captures.

Reading the Result

After three months, the snapshot table holds one row per stage per captured month, for example showing Negotiation climbing from 12 deals in month one, to 19 in month two, to 27 in month three. That kind of trend, invisible in a single live report, is exactly what tells the sales manager that deals are increasingly bunching up at the negotiation stage rather than closing, which is a very different conversation to have with the team than a single static count.

Turning It Into a Dashboard

Once a few months of snapshot data have accumulated, build a line chart from the snapshot table with month along the horizontal axis and deal count on the vertical axis, one line per stage, then pin it to a dashboard so the trend is visible at a glance in the team's regular pipeline review.