In a fast paced market, who really has the time to spend reviewing data anymore?  These days I find myself swamped with so many tasks I have to wonder daily why there isn’t more time in my day.  As I write this blog, again I find myself swamped with other tasks taking me away from the duties of keeping tabs on how things are running.  However, my slight reprieve comes in the form of some software, dashboard software to be specific. You see, instead of spending my time taking data and summarizing it, I access pre-aggregated results through dashboards saving not only myself but my employer as well.  Beyond the time component is a significant reduction in daily frustration.  Dashboards provide a simplified view into data and results where thresholds and colors can be used to enable efficient analysis as well as drive quick change within the organization.  Without these simplifications many employees are instead faced with the challenge of processing data, analyzing results, and determining a course of action over what is conceivably a much longer period of time. I feel for these people, I truly do.  Working for an organization that provides such a simple solution to such an easy to solve problem, I have to wonder why dashboards still don’t have the adoption they deserve.  It’s high time the industry got its accountability hat on and started not only producing results but sharing them in an easily digested format as well!

Jason Wolan- Technical Consultant, iDashboards

Sometimes it is easier to answer the question on how to balance our government’s budget compared to identifying a threshold. Thresholds are a critical component of business dashboards and no business should attempt to do without. I am writing this from the perspective that a company would like to: grow, increase profits, decrease expenses, and be more productive.

In terms of charts and dashboards:

- What is a threshold?
A threshold identifies a specific minimum or maximum value in which to achieve or avoid. Thresholds are useful when combined with a course of action. If a call center needs to answer calls within 3 rings, then we’ve identified a threshold, “3”; that was easy. But now let’s consider a KPI illustrating accounts past due.

- How/where are they used (in the color ranges)?
Within a chart, thresholds can be identified with visual colors, limit-lines, or icons. Some charts only display the threshold, like a traffic light. Other charts illustrate complete KPIs with a visual accent on thresholds.

- What do they represent?
When a chart or dashboard illustrates the crossover past a threshold, it should represent an action item. For example, if an expense crosses the threshold (budget), then the business needs to take action. Maybe that translates into a decision to stop spending or a decision to request additional funding.

- What is the threshold for my KPI?
Don’t just throw darts in the dark hoping to identify a critical business measure. If somebody is using a dashboard for Business Intelligence, then they probably have a threshold in mind for each of the visual charts. It may be necessary to ask end-users of a dashboard “What number Do/Don’t you want to see?” And be realistic too. Obviously any Accounts Receivable Past Due is bad, but between a $1,000 account and a $125,000 account, one will raise the hairs on the neck of an account manager.

Ken Rose - Technical Consultant, iDashboards

I travel to consult on-site with various industries. It is interesting when someone at a company asks, “Do you have any pre-built dashboards for me?”. These can be all kinds of companies (like manufacturing, finance, government, healthcare etc.) with different roles (like CIO, Finance Manager, Energy efficiency manager, CEO etc.) in various departments with various functions. You get the picture. People may be looking for pre-built dashboards that are exactly the way they want. But the question still needs to be answered.

There can be pre-built dashboards for a specific company/role/function and for a specific application. However, almost always one would find that the dashboards will need to be customized per the needs of the end user(s), even if it’s the same function and the same application at different companies. It ‘s the nature of the business, in which different strategies and procedures are adapted at different companies for similar goals. The next question is often, “Can your dashboards display the story in a way I would like it to tell?” I do my job certain way and I would like to track my indicators (or KPIs) my way, but I would not like to spend weeks or months building these dashboards. “How about a dashboard tool that allows quick data-to-graph conversion?” Once I have gotten my dashboards I might like to change them. It, thus, becomes important for a dashboard product to allow for easy and quick changes to the dashboard with minimal resources.

There are now dashboard tools available in the market with varying degrees of ease-of-use, interactivity, plug-and-play design, IT involvement, SaaS and other factors. There are also dashboard tools, which you can use to create dashboards in days and change them on-the-fly with very limited involvement of IT. Find a product that suites your needs.

Happy dashboarding!

Zahid Ansari - Technical Consultant, iDashboards

It is important to design a dashboard that is useful and conveys vital information, without overwhelming your users.  One technique for managing a mountain of data is the use of drilldowns.  A drilldown presents data to a user in bite-sized portions, instead of sitting them at the buffet table.  Rather than drowning in a sea of numbers, a user can chart a course and navigate at their own pace.  Consider the following example for a fictitious wine sales company:

The chart in the top left corner, “National Sales by Type”, gives a 30,000-foot view of the company’s sales, broken out by type of wine.  We can click on the section of the chart for a particular type of wine, and drill down to another chart, “National Sales by Subtype”, shown in the top right corner.

This second chart gives a 20,000-foot view of the business, and in this example we see a breakdown of sales for the different types of Merlot.  Clicking again leads to a third chart, “National Sales by Size”, shown in the bottom left corner.

Now we are at a 10,000-foot view, showing sales by bottle size, for the type of wine AND the subtype that we selected.  In this example, we can click one more time and get the chart in the bottom right corner, “Order Details”.

This last chart shows a long list of individual orders with various details, this time for all of our selections – type of wine AND subtype AND bottle size.

Notice that we did not show this list of orders as our FIRST chart – it contains far too many details for a user to analyze quickly.  The “National Sales by Type” chart is much more useful, because users can see at-a-glance how the company is doing.  If a user chooses to, they can click through to see details for a specific type of wine, a specific subtype, and even a specific bottle size.  Drilldowns filter a large dataset gradually, allowing users to see the sections that are important to them.

Want to see this drilldown in action?  Simply click here to try out a live, interactive example of these charts on the iDashboards website!

Warren Singh- Technical Consultant, iDashboards

An alarming trend in the dashboarding world is a tragedy that is easily avoided. Every day, users are creating dashboards that are tragically ugly. This ranges from things like using charts not suited for the data to horrendous color choices. It may be best to consult with your Marketing team about what company-approved colors will work. In Marketing, you should find a team of people ready to hand you the hex values of your company colors. Don’t forget, that you can edit the colors of a chart in a lot of places.

Remember to keep user acceptance in mind as you construct your dashboard. Sure, you may have the most practical charts available. You may have good metrics but when a user sees the dashboard, will it sing to their eyes? Will they fall in love with what you’ve presented? Or will the colors not pop, look flat & be generally sad?

Consider the following 2 charts:

vs.

These 2 charts use EXACTLY the same data, convey the EXACT same metrics but which one looks more effective? Considering this, which one do you think will get accepted more easily by the end users?

Always remember, there is a definite psychological approach to dashboard construction. Keep your end user in mind & put yourself in their shoes. Ask yourself; will they prefer aesthetics over function? Do they enjoy looking at pretty colors instead of thinking about what those colors mean? Should you include large format company logos?

Avoid the trap of getting hung up on one type of chart. For example, the manufacturing vertical often has data that lends itself well to bar & column charts. Many times dashboard developers will stick with these two staples of the industry. Instead of a column chart, why not go with an area chart, especially if you are representing trending information?

vs.

Don’t forget little basics, like matching colors on all charts, getting font sizes the same across a dashboard & removing mouse-over values if you’re using column labels. A little attention-to-detail can go a long way.

Matt Crawford- Technical Consultant, iDashboards

Accounts receivable is a critical metric for every organization, but I have found in my experience in the healthcare industry there exists a strong focus on this particular metric all the way up to the executive level. Considering that we know what our data point will be (AR) we will now have to determine how we would like to visualize this information. For this scenario the aging may be grouped by 0-30 Days, 31-60 Days, 61-90 Days, and 90+ Days. Further, the grouping levels may be Provider, Service Department, Insurance Company, Payer Group, Date, Specialty etc…

Figure 1 shows an example of how an aging bucket (0 – 30 Days) may be designed to display this information grouped on Payer Group.

FIGURE1

Figure 2 shows an example of how an aging bucket (0 – 30 Days) may be designed to display this information grouped on Provider.

FIGURE2

This concept could be designed into a full solution representing every view of the previously mentioned groups by each aging bucket; however, the purpose of this blog entry is simply to have a brief overview to generate thought among the iDashboards User Community.

Thoughts and Questions are always welcome!

Zach Breimayer- Technical Consultant, iDashboards

During my tenure working in the BI data visualization space, I have encountered common experiences without consideration to any specific vertical. I find that although the primary purpose for implementing a BI dashboard is to increase visibility into an organizations’ operations, support their strategic initiatives, and ultimately help them to make better, more actionable, decisions.

The one component that seems to always hold true is that upon implementing dashboards a new sense of visibility comes into play. One of which tells a story that wasn’t necessarily told using traditional reporting tools or mechanisms. With this increased visibility also comes accountability. Whether it’s LCDs cycling through dashboards on a manufacturing floor in various stages of the production or a regional sales manager not meeting the target sales revenue for the quarter.

Dashboards, when properly designed should tell a story at-a-glance, be clean and concise in the depiction of the applicable KPIs and then allow a user to drilldown into the root cause of an issue in order to make a strategic decision to improve production output or address why that regional sales manager is falling below the quota. In essence, the key component is that accountability seems to reach a completely new level upon implementation of a data visualization tool.

Andy Jesudowich- Technical Consultant, iDashboards

*Three talents are highly recommended: Data, Design and Business.

The qualifications for being able to build a dashboard vary; depending on how deep visual KPIs are going to penetrate your business. I’ve seen a variety of students with varying talents learn iDashboards. The most successful students have knowledge in three areas: Data, Design and Business. Can you answer these questions?

Understand Data: How is your company managing data today? Is the data in a database or Excel? Do you know how to access that data?

Dashboards are about the visual presentation of data, therefore knowing something about data is necessary if you plan to help build dashboards. Data has many different formats, locations and summarized levels. Choosing the right combination is easy if you know how to answer these questions. Lastly, don’t be afraid to ask technical resources questions about data. Their insight may save you time as you move forward.

Design: Do you understand what visual options are available within a dashboard? Do pink and olive-green look good together? Should a bar chart show all 5,000 employee details at once?

Static reports have been around since the introduction of mainframes. Columns and rows of data are awesome if you don’t want dashboards to visualize KPIs. Branch out. Use a Speedometer Chart, a Pie Chart, and maybe even a drilldown Image Gallery Chart. Sometimes you’ll feel that a chart can’t relay ‘as much’ information as a report. But to the contrary if nobody is looking at the details in a report, is there any value for a report?

Have fun with the visual options, but remember other coworkers are going to have to look at your color combinations. Look around your office, your car or your home and get some ideas on what colors naturally complement each other. Generally speaking, pink and olive-green do not look good together. Lastly, don’t be afraid to ask others for help selecting creative chart types or matching colors.

Business: Should you build a dashboard showing the number of times you brew a pot of caffeinated vs. decaffeinated coffee each day? Should you just build something so your boss can see a dashboard? On the sales chart, should we pick a target of $2M so our actual of $3M looks really good?

It’s hard to stay focused on building KPIs that are useful. You might personally track coffee usage, which is great, but it may not rank very highly on the type of metrics which will benefit your company. KPIs are constructed of specific components (see blog “Roadmap to Successful Storyboarding“)and knowing each component will greatly help define the business purpose of each chart. Lastly, don’t be afraid to ask management what they want to see.

Comments are welcome on this topic. Do you think anybody can build a dashboard?

Ken Rose - Technical Consultant, iDashboards

Most of us live in a world where we struggle to keep up with technology; an environment that progresses so quickly most of us simply cannot afford to always have the latest and greatest. The problem though is what that next greatest thing can bring us, how we can improve our quality of life simply by having that technology in it. As a consumer, and certainly an individual, intrigued by most technology, I like to think I do my best to stay on top of it, but I am definitely here to tell you that is usually easier said than done. Just as it is difficult for me as a consumer, so is it difficult for most organizations. Dwindling budgets, lack of resources, dried up investments – What do all these things add up to? A lack of the proper resources to explore new technologies and implement them.

So here I’ve gone and painted what looks like a rather grim picture for the future of technology for many consumers and businesses alike. It doesn’t have to be that way though. There is still plenty of existing technology out there to be advanced, as is. For example, why not take that business intelligence software you’re running and mobilize it. Most organizations already have the technological infrastructure to implement something like this, and generally it can be done for very little financial investment. With most employees carrying smartphones or even tablets and most business intelligence vendors taking the leap towards mobility, this step forward should seem almost natural for any organization in this position. To think that we only work when we’re tethered to our desks is nothing more than fooling ourselves. So why not enable yourself to make decisions anywhere. Get connected to the pulse of your organization to stay in tune with overall performance. Now you don’t need to find out until it’s too late, you can find out the minute something has gone wrong!

Just think about it like driving your car on a snow covered road. The sooner you feel out of control the sooner you can react to try to correct it. If you wait until it’s too late to correct it you’ll probably over react and find yourself in the ditch. You should treat your business and your job the exact same way. Why lose complete contact when you walk out the door when you’ve already got what you need to stay in constant contact in the first place.

Jason Wolan- Technical Consultant, iDashboards

We all know that competition among software application vendors has become cut-throat in our slow economy; vendors are challenged to find ways to improve their revenue. One way to come out as a winner amongst the competition is to have a better product – a product with an X-factor. [Easier said than done] Often times, companies employ different ways to distinguish themselves, which includes providing extra features within their core software application.

Even for a great application, there may only be an average level of reporting/graphing capabilities. The sales team looks for enhancements to the presentation layer for increased sales. If IT could provide some dashboards with a high-level picture using the application’s data, that could be a dealmaker. Now, let’s say, a vendor has decided to better their presentation so that the executives of the client could readily access information. The question then arises about build vs. buy. Should you employ more IT resources, or should you select to integrate a product that can deliver the information? If you find a product which excels at data visualization the choice will become obvious – embed a best-of-breed platform and leverage the data in your application.

Recently, I was on an engagement with a bank software vendor. It was very interesting to see how the presentation gap in their core offering was quickly filled with a dashboard tool. It clearly became a differentiating factor among competition, and a strong sales tool for the sales team. This vendor is now able to present their information in an easy-to-read format with dashboards. These dashboards are highly interactive and can be rolled out to different layers of management i.e. executives, VPs, directors, managers. These dashboards also pull information from different data sources to show the synergy among indicators on one single dashboard e.g. teller transaction volume vs. call center call volume vs. automated phone banking system.

I hope the blog was helpful for management and IT alike. Should you have questions/comments, please feel free to post.

Zahid Ansari - Technical Consultant, iDashboards