Airline Executive Dashboard - Sparklines spark this excel dashboard to a data visualization contest win

Dashboard

Topic: Business Intelligence Dashboard with Sparklines

What do C-level executives look for in an executive dashboard? I believe it is a concise representation of whatever business scenario the executive wishes to examine. The dashboard design problem is, of course, how to represent a lot of information without cluttering the user interface. A “hot” design solution right now in general is the idea of “sparklines”. In particular, we are seeing sparklines appear in executive dashboards more and more often. Today we examine one dashboard in detail.

Remember when we discussed the dashboard contest with the scenario about the airline management views of enterprise data? (Use the link to see the previously discussed entry by Dr. Allison). The contest was the Business Intelligence Network’s 2006 Data Visualization Competition judged by Stephen Few, data visualization expert and author of the amazing dashboard book, Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data. The competition consisted of five scenario descriptions that covered various business situations. Well Andreas of BonaVistaSystems.com, the winner of the airline management dashboard scenario, proudly wrote me from Germany to tell me about his victory. The main visual difference between the winning entry and other submissions was the use of sparklines allowing for efficient screen use. As he explains:

The task was to develop a dashboard for the executives of an U.S. commercial airline. The dashboard has to allow the executive team to monitor their business and to quickly identify anything that needs attention.

The airline dashboard was designed with Microsoft Excel and BonaVista MicroCharts. The dashboard visualizes about 500 numbers on a single screen. The dashboard looks different because it was designed using effective design principles. It avoids ineffective eye-catchers like speedometers or radial gauges. MicroCharts sparklines and bullet graphs are used as an effective means to put all decision relevant information on a single screen.

Here is the winning dashboard:

If you want, you can really zoom in on this enterprise dashboard and examine it in detail. To check out or test drive the product used to create the excel dashboards and sparklines, use these links provided by Andreas:

http://www.bonavistasystems.com/OnlineDemoReports.html

The dashboard won the Business Intelligence Network’s 2006 Data
Visualization Competition:
http://www.bonavistasystems.com/NewsDataVis_Winner.html

It’s an Excel dashboard that uses MicroCharts for dense information
dashboards:
http://www.bonavistasystems.com/Products_SparkLiner_Dashboards.html

MicroCharts:
http://www.bonavistasystems.com/Products_SparkLiner_Overview.html

Homework: Do your research on sparklines by starting here. Also, you must review the literature by Edward Tufte, the originator of the concept.

Tags: Excel Dashboard, Sparklines on Dashboards, Microsoft Excel Dashboards, executive dashboards, Sparkline Dashboard

So what or who is The Dashboard Spy? The Dashboard Spy is just a guy interested in the design of executive dashboards and scorecards. He could not find any executive dashboard design source books (or even screenshots of real business dashboards) and so set about creating his own. Finally convinced to post his extensive collection of dashboard screenshots online, he was amazed to find how popular it has become. If you have a nice screenshot of a digital dashboard, balanced scorecard, or any business intelligence graphic to share, please send an email to info _at_ dashboardspy.com. Also check out The Dashboard Spy’s favorite books on business dashboards.

PS: If you find yourself part of an enterprise dashboard effort, you must study Enterprise Dashboards: Design and Best Practices for IT, the only book on actually implementing enterprise dashboards.

Topic: Digital Dashboarding with Sparklines

Vehicle Fleet Dashboard - Screenshots of motor pool management dashboards

Tracking the statuses and comings and goings of vehicles in any decent-sized fleet can be demanding. Dashboarding, with its at-a-glance nature and drill-down capability, is a great approach to this challenge. Here we take a look at a vehicle fleet dashboard from the Agile FleetCommander product. The dashboard lists the leaving and returning reservations by name and time on the right side. On the left, we have the summary level numbers for vehicle activity, administration tasks and fleet management links. The next enterprise dashboard screenshot shows the vehicle optimization chart drilldown. As far as I can make out, D stands for Departure and C stands for Coming In?

Homework: The best way to make sure that your dashboard is a success is to really pay attention to the design phase of the project. Well worth studying is this lavishly illustrated book, Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data.

So what or who is The Dashboard Spy? As his about page states, The Dashboard Spy is just a guy interested in the design of enterprise dashboards. He could not find any executive dashboard design source books (or even screenshots of real business dashboards) and so set about creating his own. Finally convinced to post his extensive collection of dashboard screenshots online, he was amazed to find how popular it has become. If you have a digital dashboard, balanced scorecard, or any business intelligence graphic to share, send an email to info _at_ dashboardspy.com. Also check out The Dashboard Spy’s books on enterprise dashboards. His current favorite is Enterprise Dashboards: Design and Best Practices for IT, the only book on actually implementing executive dashboards.

Dashboard of Economic Indicators - A municipal website and its enterprise dashboard approach to serving metrics

When local governments make the effort to supply their citizens with the knowledge and data that can make a difference in their lives, it makes a positive impact on the quality of life. As an example of a truly effective municipal website, see the Region of Peel. Their logo says “Working for You” and I think they really mean it. From gardening alerts, to local economic indicator dashboards, this site keeps the residents informed. In the sample dashboard screenshot below, note that the gauges on the bottom dashboard act as a navigational element that you use to view the various economic indicators. The dials themselves are merely decorative and not meant to indicate true values. When you hover over the various parts of the economic dashboard, you get a hover over message to indicate sections of this enterprise dashboard such as population change, taxable assessment, value of building permits, residential housing starts, labour market, existing home sales, Canadian manufacturing production, business establishments, business bankruptcies, and Ontario Works caseloads. The section above the dashboard graphic is split into a left column for use in displaying KPI graphs and a right column that is dedicated to text-based commentary. Oh, by the way, in case you haven’t figured it out by now, the region of Peel is in Canada. Specifically, it is in the province of Ontario and is the second largest municipality after Toronto.

Homework: The best way to make sure that your dashboard is a success is to really pay attention to the design phase of the project. Well worth studying is this lavishly illustrated book, Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data.

So what or who is The Dashboard Spy? As his about page states, The Dashboard Spy is just a guy interested in the design of enterprise dashboards. He could not find any executive dashboard design source books (or even screenshots of real business dashboards) and so set about creating his own. Finally convinced to post his extensive collection of dashboard screenshots online, he was amazed to find how popular it has become. If you have a digital dashboard, balanced scorecard, or any business intelligence graphic to share, send an email to info _at_ dashboardspy.com. Also check out The Dashboard Spy’s books on enterprise dashboards. His current favorite is Enterprise Dashboards: Design and Best Practices for IT, the only book on actually implementing executive dashboards.

Support Process Dashboards - How the MIT helpdesk tracks client satisfaction through the First Contact support dashboard

The user community at MIT is supported by the Information Services & Technology (IS&T) department. Back in 2002, they performed a study of the effectiveness of their IT services. Jointly with Stanford, they looked at the issues such as: “How are our IT investments performing? How can we use our IT systems to help manage ourselves better?” The first IT area selected for study was the IT Help Desk. The First Contact Dashboard was created and is still used today to monitor performance of MIT’s helpdesk support functions. As you can see from the enterprise dashboard screenshot, the primary measure is client satisfaction (an attribute that can be hard to quantify). At MIT, the individual components of client satisfaction are Availability, Communication, Resolution, Timeliness, Expertise and Professionalism. The KPIs are published on a weekly basis and distributed via pdf files. Available views include weekly, last six weeks, last three months, and last six months. Other miscellaneous statistics, typical of call centers and support operations, include calls, call length, abandonment rate, call wait times, cases, etc.

Homework: Getting involved with call center or help desk management? Start with these books on help desk management. Note: Hey, Dashboard Spies!: Do you know how smart you are getting by reading The Dashboard Spy? From pig production to airplane crew size optimization to monitoring presidential campaigns, we’ve examined enterprise dashboards from all aspects of business. I’ll do my share to keep snooping around for those elusive dashboard screenshots that keep this dashboard screenshot collection interesting.

So what or who is The Dashboard Spy? As his about page states, The Dashboard Spy is just a guy interested in the design of enterprise dashboards. He could not find any executive dashboard design source books (or even screenshots of real business dashboards) and so set about creating his own. Finally convinced to post his extensive collection of dashboard screenshots online, he was amazed to find how popular it has become. If you have a nice screenshot of a digital dashboard, balanced scorecard, or any business intelligence graphic to share, please send an email to info _at_ dashboardspy.com. Also check out The Dashboard Spy’s favorite books on business dashboards.

PS: If you find yourself part of an enterprise dashboard effort, you must study Enterprise Dashboards: Design and Best Practices for IT, the only book on actually implementing enterprise dashboards.

Florida School District Performance Dashboard - using education dashboards to promote citizen journalism and local political action

We are well familiar with the usual ways big business uses performance dashboards - to measure and improve corporate measures, quicken agility in the market, boost shareholder value, blah, blah. It is quite refreshing to see performance dashboards used in a different light. Thanks to long time Dashboard Spy reader, Clint, we have this Florida School District Education Dashboard to study. This performance dashboard tracks the performance of school districts in Florida. It is done using Crystal Xcelsius. What is really of interest to me is how the dashboard is being used as the core of a local political action. Note the instructions on how to send the dashboard to others and how users are encouraged to make the dashboard the center of their citizen journalism. Clint was mentioning how he had some suggestions about the layout of the dashboard. It’d be wonderful if he would share some of his insight here. Thanks in advance!

So what or who is The Dashboard Spy? As his about page states, The Dashboard Spy is just a guy interested in the design of enterprise dashboards. He could not find any executive dashboard design source books (or even screenshots of real business dashboards) and so set about creating his own. Finally convinced to post his extensive collection of dashboard screenshots online, he was amazed to find how popular it has become. If you have a nice screenshot of a digital dashboard, balanced scorecard, or any business intelligence graphic to share, please send an email to info _at_ dashboardspy.com. Also check out The Dashboard Spy’s favorite books on business dashboards.

PS: If you find yourself part of an enterprise dashboard effort, you must study Enterprise Dashboards: Design and Best Practices for IT, the only book on actually implementing enterprise dashboards.

Enterprise Application Management Dashboard - design sketches for product revision

Early in 2006, CA acquired Wily Technology, a company that specialized in the area of enterprise application management. I was given a series of dashboard screenshot sketches for a Wily enterprise dashboard product facelift by a Dashboard Spy before the transaction completed. I don’t know if this was put into production or not. I’ll present the dashboard designs as a sketch for brainstorming. See if these dashboard drilldowns are helpful in any way, either to someone working on an application monitoring system, or a general dashboard-driven application. I particularly like the way the help page is laid out. Seems like it would work well for dashboard users.

So what or who is The Dashboard Spy? As his about page states, The Dashboard Spy is just a guy interested in the design of enterprise dashboards. He could not find any executive dashboard design source books (or even screenshots of real business dashboards) and so set about creating his own. Finally convinced to post his extensive collection of dashboard screenshots online, he was amazed to find how popular it has become. If you have a nice screenshot of a digital dashboard, balanced scorecard, or any business intelligence graphic to share, please send an email to info _at_ dashboardspy.com. Also check out The Dashboard Spy’s favorite books on business dashboards.

PS: If you find yourself part of an enterprise dashboard effort, you must study Enterprise Dashboards: Design and Best Practices for IT, the only book on actually implementing enterprise dashboards.

Illegal Cigarette Sales Dashboard - using dashboarding to combat youth smoking in Wisconsin

Here’s a noble effort in enterprise dashboarding. The State of Wisconsin has a program called Wisconsin Wins to combat youth smoking. If you go to the link and click on “Scorecard”, you’ll see the following digital dashboard. It tracks the results of the retailer testing program for detecting illegal sales of cigarettes. They send in test buyers to see if retailers follow the rules about selling tobacco to minors. According to the dashboard, federal targets a violation rate of 20%. It looks like Wisconsin is doing well. Try out the link and you’ll see that the design and usability can use a little help. The formatting, scrolling, popup usage and visual consistency is off. Perhaps a kind Dashboard Spy reader in Wisconsin could donate the State of Wisconsin a little consulting time. A graph or two would really help out as well.

Note: Hey, Dashboard Spies!: Do you know how smart you are getting by reading The Dashboard Spy? From pig production to airplane crew size optimization to monitoring presidential campaigns, we’ve examined enterprise dashboards from all aspects of business. I’ll do my share to keep snooping around for those elusive dashboard screenshots that keep this dashboard screenshot collection interesting.

So what or who is The Dashboard Spy? As his about page states, The Dashboard Spy is just a guy interested in the design of enterprise dashboards. He could not find any executive dashboard design source books (or even screenshots of real business dashboards) and so set about creating his own. Finally convinced to post his extensive collection of dashboard screenshots online, he was amazed to find how popular it has become. If you have a nice screenshot of a digital dashboard, balanced scorecard, or any business intelligence graphic to share, please send an email to info _at_ dashboardspy.com. Also check out The Dashboard Spy’s favorite books on business dashboards.

PS: If you find yourself part of an enterprise dashboard effort, you must study Enterprise Dashboards: Design and Best Practices for IT, the only book on actually implementing enterprise dashboards.

ERP Dashboard for Sales - enterprise dashboards as front ends for ERP systems

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) packages are quite ambitious. Basically they contain the entire data model for the company. The weak points have been the tremendous effort it takes to match the data model with the business processes (some companies find it easier to change their processes to match the package’s data models!) and the front ends. As of late, dashboards have become the favorite way for users to access their ERP data.

This sample sales dashboard comes from the Enterprise 21 ERP software package. The idea is that all the data captured by the ERP package can be translated into these types of charts. Each user can configure charts and set up their pages to contain the charts they want. Here we see a sales dashboard view with KPI metrics such as sales, gross margins, and product comparisons. The technology looks a little dated (client/server app, clunky graphics), but I bet the users still love it.

Homework: Joining an ERP project? Check out books on ERP packages. And if you are on an enterprise dashboard project, do yourself a favor and take a look at Enterprise Dashboards: Design and Best Practices for IT, the only book on actually implementing enterprise dashboards.

So what or who is The Dashboard Spy? As his about page states, The Dashboard Spy is just a guy interested in the design of enterprise dashboards. He could not find any executive dashboard design source books (or even screenshots of real business dashboards) and so set about creating his own. Finally convinced to post his extensive collection of dashboard screenshots online, he was amazed to find how popular it has become. If you have a nice screenshot of a digital dashboard, balanced scorecard, or any business intelligence graphic to share, please send an email to info _at_ dashboardspy.com. Also check out The Dashboard Spy’s favorite books on business dashboards.