Planning Dashboard development for your company?
A business intelligence dashboard is a data visualization tool that displays the current status of metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) for an enterprise. BI Dashboards consolidate and arrange numbers, metrics and sometimes performance scorecards on a single screen. They may be tailored for a specific role and display metrics targeted for a single point of view or department. The essential features of a BI dashboard product include a customizable interface and the ability to pull real-time data from multiple sources.
Dashboards are unique. The development of each dashboard is driven by the business and their needs and culture. What may work for one business may not work for another. There are general guidelines that are available when initially developing the tool or when looking to improve current performance metrics.
Planning and researching a good design is crucial for dashboards. A good information design will clearly communicate key information to users and makes supporting information easily accessible. Setting up your business dashboard can also be fun and worthwhile if done correctly.
Types of dashboards
Operational Dashboards: Operational dashboards display data that facilitate the operational side of a business. For an example in a business with a website, it’s important to ensure that your website remains up and running, so you can monitor server up time. In a business with sales, you may want to track your progress in sales. Operational dashboards often require real time data.
Strategic / Executive Dashboards: Executive dashboards will typically provide the KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) that a company executive team track on a periodic (daily, weekly or monthly basis). A strategic dashboard should provide the executive team with a high-level overview of the state of the business together with the opportunities the business faces.
Key Elements of a good dashboard development
- Simple, communicates easily
- Minimum distractions…it could cause confusion
- Supports organized business with meaning and useful data
- Applies human visual perception to visual presentation of information
Guideline to good dashboard development
- Focus on the target audience. Target audience could be for different levels of management or different departments
- Display only actionable information. For an example if a KPI is not actionable do not include that on the dashboard.
- Dashboard should communicate its message without deep dive into raw data.
- Keep the dashboard boundaries on a single screen.
- Select the display media and development accordingly. Choose the right colors and right chart types.
