Dashboards
One of the most critical factors in surviving and indeed thriving in today's challenging economic conditions will be the availability of high quality, real time information on which to base a clear course of action. But while most organisations aspire to a culture of information-based decision making, many have struggled to deliver that information to those who need it in a usable, easily digested format.
Dashboards can do just that. They combine business intelligence and performance management to provide business users with the tools to simplify complex information requirements, predict the outcomes of change with greater certainty and monitor the execution of strategic objectives.
To access dashboard resources and find out how the insight they yield can be used in your specific role or department, please make your selection from the menu bellow.
What is a dashboard?
A dashboard is a high-impact data visualisation tool that helps knowledge workers to make better, more informed decisions. Like a car's central console, the graphical interface simplifies critical real-time information so that you can see what's happening at a glance.
But systems likeSAP BusinessObjects' dashboards do more than just provide a read-out - they're highly interactive, enabling you to perform point-and-click analysis to easily predict the outcome of changing variables or circumstances with greater accuracy.
Visible benefits
- Thanks to a secure, live connection to your Business Intelligence platform, you can answer those all-important "what if...?" questions without having to re-query the source data underneath.
- Because dashboards enable you to consolidate information from multiple sources, you can spot trends that might not otherwise be readily apparent.
- You can also personalise your view to organise information the way you want it, freeing you from reliance on IT for the majority of your custom reporting needs.
Sharing knowledge
- You can easily publish your dashboards via familiar Microsoft Office applications, Adobe PDFs and to the web, enabling you to share insight quickly and easily, both inside and outside your organisation.
Rapid time to value
- Because of the tangible efficiencies and savings that are delivered by improving visibility of your operations, dashboards have a rapid time to value, with half of all companies achieving positive ROI within less than a year of implementation.
Dashboard Demonstration & Examples
IT Performs have put together a selection of Demonstration dashboards by department and by industry please select from the list below.
Dashboards by Department |
Dashboards by Industry |
Dashboard Videos
Learn best practices for high-impact dashboards by watching our videos, featuring three dashboard master practitioners and discover the secrets to successfully building and deploying these interactive visualisations to help your organisation adopt a culture of information-based decision making.
Top Ten Tips for Dynamic Dashboards
What should you look for from your dashboarding solution?
Here are our top ten must-have attributes:
1. Simplicity: Dashboards must be highly intuitive to use, requiring no formal training to master.
2. Open-Ended: This visual technology will be end-user led - power users should be able to update or introduce new metrics without intervention from IT.
3. Tailored View: The ability to create role-based dashboards will enable the creation of performance metrics for individual departments or business areas.
4. Visualisation: Dashboards should display information that reflects specific user requirements.
5. Go Deeper: Integrated analysis and reporting ensures users can drill down through the dashboard to detailed reports that explain trends and issues.
6. Trusted Data: Metadata should provide the context for each metric, demonstrating how it has been calculated, and end users should be confident in the original data source.
7. Anytime, Anywhere: Users should be able to access the dashboard from any location - on the web, through the company portal, via their mobile, smartphone or PDA, by email, or displayed within Microsoft tools such as PowerPoint or Adobe Acrobat.
8. Complete View: Dashboards must provide access to any data source, SAP or non SAP, OLAP or SQL, to provide a complete 360 degree view.
9. Personalisation: Users should be able to choose what information to display and design the dashboard layout to meet their own requirements.
10. Monitoring and Alerts: By tracking metrics and providing alerts when thresholds are breached, a dashboard should allow "management by exception".
