How do you make a Dashboard good?

I’m sure you all know what a Dashboard is by now, but if you have had any experience of them have you ever wondered why some are great, and some just aren’t?

It’s often not as simple as the charts and graphs you decide you use; the quality and usefulness of a dashboard starts much earlier than that.

What does a good dashboard show?

- You understand your business.

- You know how to communicate.

- Gives context.

- You understand your client’s needs.

The key to making any dashboard work starts with the right data being available to it. For a good dashboard this data will always come from a range of sources, as this allows you to look at data in context. Accounting systems, training records, time & attendance platforms, and field-based data capture tools (or audits for the rest of us) all should be contributing to the picture.

All these tools will hold data in different formats and in different places, from spreadsheets, databases to data warehouses. You need to look at ways of pooling the relevant data for each dashboard into a structured dataset which the dashboard can use, this will make it quicker to load.

Remember, you should only measure what matters. Putting everything out to see on the front page is never the right way to go, a dashboard is an interactive tool, so use the drill-down functionality to show the details, keep your visuals simple.

A great way to help you to do this is start with the story you are trying to tell, followed by the questions you often get asked. The story is the front page the answers to the questions can be found with a single click.

What should a good Dashboard do?

- Help you to make faster decisions.

- Help you to make better predictions.

- Understand large amounts of data quickly.

- Track performance metrics.

- Use bench marking to positive effect.

Who makes a good Dashboard?

Dashboards might not constitute a full-time job, but Dashboards done well require specialist knowledge, a Microsoft PowerBI course might get you some of the way, but skills far broader than this are what make the difference.

Initially the planning needs to be taken care of by;

• Business Analyst: To understand your business processes, how it collects the data, where that data gets stored and how to get it where needed.

• Data Analyst: To understand what picture your data is painting, and if anything key is missing, if you aren't used to handling Big Data this can be trickier than you think.

• Solutions Architect: To create the design behind the various systems, APIs and Data Transfer protocols, and how best to get to the dashboard software.

All 3 of these people will need to be involved in helping to select the most suitable dashboard software to meet your needs as well. Then you can start with the doing.

• Technical Implementation: Once the planing is done, you need to start with the doing. This requires Database skills to structure things properly as well as a detailed understanding of the actual dashboard software itself.

• UI Design: To keep the user interface visualisation consistent and easy to understand and use. As well as inline with your companies branding and voice.

• Testers: This is the team that check everything over before you start sharing the dashboards to make business critical decisions, or giving them to your clients, you need to be certain that you are not delivering false information.

When you are happy and ready to go live the project doesn't stop...

• Ongoing Maintenance: This is always needed to keep the wheels turning when many systems are connected things change and update regularly, so the dashboard needs to evolve with all its contributors.

• Hosting & Embedding: This can be expensive for a small business, there are shared options that are secure and much more cost efficient.

• Support: There are a lot of moving parts to keep an eye on, so having someone to call if things don’t look right should never be overlooked.

It’s no wonder so many dashboards miss the mark. If you have any questions on how you can start a dashboard project, or if you are unfulfilled by your current solution, please challenge us and see if we can help you succeed.