2. WHAT IS A DASHBOARD? "A digital dashboard, also known as an enterprise dashboard or executive dashboard, is a business management tool used to visually ascertain the status (or "health") of a business enterprise via key business indicators. Digital dashboards use visual, at-a-glance displays of data pulled from disparate business systems to provide warnings, action notices, next steps, and summaries of business conditions." Source: Wikipedia 2

3. NEED FOR A DASHBOARD In today’s world where people are inundated with more data than they can process, dashboard design plays a very important role as it is the channel through which information flows to the decision-maker Top level executives do not have the time to wade through voluminous sets of reports Easy access to actionable information 3

4. TYPES OF DASHBOARD Dashboards used for strategic purposes Analytic dashboard Operational dashboard 4

5. KEY FEATURES OF A DASHBOARD Clarity Balance Appropriateness 5

6. BEST PRACTICES (AESTHETICS) Layout and Clarity – 3 and 10 seconds rule Use date windows so that end-users can change the date to see different report. Band / highlight selected dates to so that users know what they are looking. Use effective colors Use basic charts Be smart with data labels Let your users customize the dashboard Highlight important information Show metrics by dimension A good dashboard tells what is important and what is not 6

7. BEST PRACTICES (KPI) Customizable KPI List Content is king. Do not roll out a new functional area (e.g. marketing, finance, etc.) until there are at least 3 to 5 KPI’s available for users to select. Three to seven KPI’s per tab seems to be most effective. Overall the median number of KPI’s on most user’s dashboards is 20 across all functional areas. (e.g. 3 to 7 KPI’s per tab, with 3 to 5 tabs). KPI’s should be indicators only; analysis is accomplished via drill-down. All KPI’s should be “drillable” to access additional detail and conduct further analysis. Be judicious in your use of graphic icons and color coded indicators. Too many graphics or the proverbial spinning logo can quickly confuse or annoy users. 7

8. APPROACHES Build a custom application Use a Dashboard Designing Tool Use of Big Vendor’s BI Tool Creating Dashboards using Excel 8

9. CHOICE OF TOOL Heavy Analytics vs. Static reports Geographical data (i.e. Sales by Province in Canada) – Map Data over time, ratio data, comparison of linear data – Chart Snapshot data, single values (i.e. KPIs) – Gauge Multidimensional data – OLAP Other data – Diagram 9

10. CHOICE OF TOOL 10

11. LATEST TOOLS Performance Point 2010 Report Part SSRS R2 Dundas Power Pivot PushBI 11

12. DECOMPOSITION TREE 12

13. SAMPLE DASHBOARD 13

14. SAMPLE INTERACTIVE DASHBOARD 14

15. SAMPLE INTERACTIVE DASHBOARD 15

16. HANDS-ON Hands-on walk through of Power Pivot 16

17. ? 17

18. THANK YOU 18