Business Intelligence dashboards are one of the most important tools in any company’s arsenal. They provide executives, managers, and analysts with a way to look at all aspects of their company’s performance in one place. In this blog post, we’ll explore what you need to know about Business Intelligence dashboards and what the best practices are when creating them.
What is a Business Intelligence Dashboard and why do they matter?
A Business Intelligence dashboard is a tool for summarizing business performance. It does this by combining data from different sources and displaying it in a way that makes it easy to read and understand, using graphs, charts and tables. Dashboards help organizations answer questions such as:
- “How are we doing at achieving our goals?”
- “What’s the impact of a new product line?”
Dashboards are important because they provide big picture information and help answer questions like: ‘Are we growing?’, ‘Are we turning a profit?’ and ‘Are our relationships with other companies improving?’ Dashboards allow business leaders to see how their company is doing, but because the data is aggregated, it means that they can’t drill down to investigate what’s going wrong or where their company could improve. This makes dashboards more suitable for companies with a team of analysts who are looking at the information further.
Why do Business Intelligence Dashboards matter?
Dashboards provide big-picture information and help answer questions like: ‘Are we growing?’, ‘Are we turning a profit?’ and ‘Are our relationships with other companies improving?’
Dashboards always provide an at-a-glance view of performance and allow organizations to track their progress toward goals and milestones.
Types of Dashboards – Solo vs Combined
There are two types of Business Intelligence dashboards, solo and combined. A solo dashboard is one that you would find for an individual, specific topic, or question. For example, if you wanted to find out how the marketing department was performing over a certain time period, you could create a dashboard that answered this question specifically. These dashboards allow for drill-downs and further investigation.
A combined dashboard is one that contains different topics of data such as sales performance and marketing performance. These dashboards are more suitable for when you want to get a quick view of how your company is performing, rather than drilling down to explore in greater detail.
Understanding the components of a BI dashboard.
As with any type of design, there are many different ways that you can approach designing Business Intelligence dashboards. However, there are some key elements that should always be included in good dashboard design.
- Color scheme – when designing your dashboards, you should always use color to guide the reader. Dark colors should be used for data that is below an organization’s goals and lighter colors should be used for data that is doing better than expected.
- Format – one of the most important elements of good dashboard design is to make sure that the data can be easily understood. You should use graphs, charts, and tables to display your data in a way that the reader will understand the information you are trying to convey.
- Headline – this is another element that is important for making sure that your data is easily understood. The headline should be a bold statement that summarizes the main point of your dashboard. As with any type of design, it’s better to keep sentences short and simple, as this will make them easier to read.
- Call-to-action – this is an important element because at the end of any dashboard you should have a call-to-action. This is typically text which asks the reader what they will do next or advises them on what to do next.
- Business goals – as with every design, it’s important to understand your audience. In this instance, your audience is those who will be reading your dashboards. You should make sure that your dashboards are designed in a way that answers their questions, needs, and expectations of what they will get from the dashboard.
- Data – this is obviously an important element because it’s the main focus of your dashboard! It’s worth remembering that not all data will be relevant to your audience, so make sure to filter out any unnecessary data which is not needed for the reader.
- Design – as previously mentioned, design is a key element to any successful Business Intelligence dashboard. Without good design your data will be difficult to read and understand, so make sure to use an appropriate color scheme, format, and layout of your data.
The five Ws – when creating dashboards it’s good practice to ask yourself who, what, why, where, and when before you create a design.
- Who? – this question is about your target audience, so ask yourself who will be reading the dashboard. This can include executives, managers, or analysts for example.
- What? – your what questions are about the data itself, so think about what kind of data you are looking to analyze. This can include things like sales, team performance, or customer satisfaction for example.
- When? – this question is about when you want your data displayed on your dashboard, so think about what time frame the data should cover. You may have a daily, weekly, or monthly target which you want to reach.
- Where? – this question is about where you want your data displayed on your dashboard. You may want to put the qualitative data on one page and the quantitative data on another for example.
- Why? – another important question to ask yourself before creating a dashboard is why you need the information in the first place. This helps you determine the approach to take and what metrics to include on your dashboards.
The best practices for creating successful dashboards.
- Designing solo vs combined dashboards – as mentioned previously, there are two types of business intelligence dashboard design that you can undertake. You should ask yourself what type of dashboard would suit your needs best, as there are pros and cons to both.
- A solo dashboard has the advantage of giving you more freedom over what you want to present to the viewer. However, it’s worth remembering that these dashboards can sometimes be too complex for readers who are not familiar with business intelligence or data analysis. The other downside to solo dashboards is that it can sometimes be difficult to find all of the data in one place, so you will have to do extensive research.
- A combined dashboard has the advantage of being quick and easy for viewers who are not familiar with business analytics or complex graphs. The downside to this type of dashboard is that it can be difficult for those who are looking for a quick overview of how the business is doing to find the relevant data. It’s worth noting here that you should not try to fit too much information on one dashboard because this could make your design look messy and unorganized.
- Hover controls – these are important elements to include in your dashboards because they give the viewer the ability to interact with your design. This is particularly useful for large displays, as viewers may want to zoom in or out of graphs or scroll around a page without having to leave their computer screen. Hover controls are also useful for those who are viewing on mobile devices where it can be difficult to navigate between pages.
- Separating graphs – sometimes, you will find that it’s better to separate your graphs into different sections of the dashboard rather than displaying them next to each other. This allows the viewer to focus on one graph at a time, which means they are more likely to understand what they are looking at.
- Labels and legends – these are important elements that help to convey the meaning of your data. It’s worth remembering that labels should be kept short and simple, while legends can be a bit more complex.
- Reducing clutter – sometimes, there is just too much information crammed into a dashboard. In order to reduce the clutter in your design and create something that’s easier for viewers to understand, it’s important that you omit any information that isn’t relevant to the topic at hand.
- Fonts and colors – when you choose your font and color schemes for your dashboard, it’s important that these are easy on the eye. Try working with a dark background and then use contrasting lighter fonts or vice versa if you desire. Another good idea is to make sure the fonts are big enough to be read easily.
- Dashboard layout – it’s important that your dashboard is easy for viewers to navigate around so think carefully about where you place your graphs, charts, and tables. Try not to overcrowd the page because this could make it difficult for them to find certain pieces of data.
- Graph size – when you are designing your dashboards it’s worth being aware of the scale of your graphs. Generally, you want to have a graph with approximately 160% of its regular height for example. This allows viewers to easily identify what they’re looking at and how much data is displayed within each piece.
- Information overload – when you’re using your dashboard on a daily basis, there’s a chance that you’ll be faced with information overload at times. In these cases, it’s good practice to limit the amount of information you show on your dashboard because this means that you’ll have a more manageable and useful piece of data in hand.
If you’re looking for an easy way to see how your whole organization is performing in one glance, then we hope this article has given you a better idea of how Business Intelligence dashboards can be used to improve your company’s performance. Are these BI principles being applied in your organization? Reach out to us if you’re looking for a full setup in your organization.