Hi Jennifer,

If I understand #2 correctly, I've run into this one myself.  We have many custom picklist fields with values "Yes" and "No" to track whether something has happened.  There was a valid business reason for creating it this way, but it does prevent the calculation within reports.  The problem is that picklist values are stored as text and you need a number field for Custom Summary Formulas.  The following field types are recognized as number fields:  checkbox (true = 1, false = 0), number or currency.  In my case, I'm looking to convert these yes/no picklist fields to checkbox fields to be able to do the custom summary formulas.  Salesforce has made this conversion really easy too, you simply need to map the existing picklist values to a "checked/true" or "unchecked/false" value.  I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I don't think there's a way to get the calculation you want with your field as a picklist.

Kristin

Thanks Kristin - that does help for #2.  I switched to a checkbox and was able to get a percentage.

Any idea on how to get this percentage to show on my Dashboard instead of the value?

Try setting up a Chart within your Report.  When you setup a Chart within your Report, you can pick what you want to appear on your Y-axis and X-axis.  My guess is it defaulted to the total count, rather than your %. 

The dashboard picks up the Chart settings, so once you save the report, refresh your Dashboard to confirm the new settings are what you expected.