Cluttered CRM: where to start

The short answerInventory before you delete. Every field gets a consumer, meaning a report, a routing rule or an integration that reads it. Every automation gets a last-fired date. Anything with no consumer and anything idle for six months is a candidate. Remove in waves with reporting checked after each, because the field nobody uses is occasionally the one feeding the board deck.

The inventory, and what to do with each finding

Fields with no consumerNothing reads them. Remove, after checking integrations.Biggest quick win

Required fields nobody usesA tax on every record created, paid by reps.Cut hard

Automations idle six monthsDead or dangerous. Disable and watch before deleting.Never bulk delete

Overlapping automationsTwo rules writing the same field, last one wins.Causes phantom bugs

Picklists with sprawlForty values where six were intended. Reporting cannot group them.Normalise on write

Reports nobody opensClutter in its own right, and they hide the ones that matter.Check last viewed

What this looked like in practice

22 people had stopped trusting it

In one instance, twenty two people had quietly stopped quoting the CRM number and started asking colleagues instead. The field inventory found required fields with no consuming report and automations that had not fired in over a year.

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Questions

Where do we start with a cluttered CRM?

With an inventory. Every field needs a named consumer, meaning a report, rule or integration that reads it, and every automation needs a last-fired date. Then remove in waves.

Is it safe to delete unused fields?

Only after checking integrations as well as reports. Disable or hide first, watch for a fortnight, then delete.

How do we know which automations are safe to turn off?

Start with anything that has not fired in six months. Disable rather than delete and watch what breaks before committing.

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Our CRM is cluttered with unused fields and broken automations. Where do we start?