The U.S. government’s Foreign Assistance Dashboard is maintained by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Take a look at this Federal business intelligence dashboard at this link:
http://www.foreignassistance.gov
. Click on this image to enlarge the dashboard screenshot:

The U.S. Federal Foreign Assistance Dashboard

The administration hopes that the site will help governments receiving funds to better plan and budget, as well enable donors to coordinate and target investments more effectively, according to the post. As with other federal dashboards, the government also hopes the public will hold agencies accountable for the money being spent to ensure it is not used wastefully.

My impression on the dashboard design:

Love the left/right navigation arrows on either side of the main graphic. Combined with the partial view of the dashboard metric “previous” (to the left) and the “next” chart (to the right), these arrows complement the sliding graphics device perfectly.

Tags: U.S. Foreign Aid Dashboard, Foreign Assistance Dashboard

Hubert Lee
The Dashboard Spy

30 minutes spent browsing through the incredibly imaginative world of data depiction gives you a huge degree of respect for the visual arts and the way data can come alive before our eyes.

Here are some favorite blogs on data visualization:

Blog about Stats

Climate
Charts & Graphs

informationisbeautiful.net

Visualizing
Economics – Gallery

Financial
Infographics – Making Sense of This Financial Mess!

Diagrams:
everything is connected to everything else

Some of this work is simply stunning. In fact, you’ll see clearly that information visualizations are simply too “big” to put on a dashboard. Dashboards have charts and graphs. These infoviz artifacts go way beyond that. They are “dashboards” unto themselves.

Hubert Lee

The Dashboard Spy

in this hour long Excel Dashboard Tutorial, you can watch a real-life excel dashboard being designed and constructed.

Here’s what the excel dashboard looks like:

Anyone who uses excel and would like to see what kind of dashboard can be created in excel should watch this video lesson. Taught by veteran dashboard expert and excel guru, Chandoo, this tutorial is 65 minutes long and includes:

• Dashboard Design Principles
• Dashboard Architecture Considerations
• Data Cleansing
• Pivot Table Techniques
• Excel Word Clouds

This Excel Dashboard Tutorial is highly recommended to Dashboard Spy readers.

Dashboards.org
Dashboards.tv
Dashboard Spy
Dashboards by Example

Excel dashboard examples are among the featured posts at enterprisedashboards.com

Take a look at this infographic-style Excel dashboard. It’s made with Excel 2010 (now with sparklines!).

You can download this excel dashboard from Chandoo’s post: An Excel Info-graphic Poster.

Hubert Lee
The Dashboard Spy

Excel dashboards are proving to be the most cost effective business intelligence dashboard tools. First of all, everyone has Microsoft Excel, it’s already the standard for data analysis, and the new charting features are quite powerful.

We are seeing more and more data visualization being done in Excel. Everyone is urged to sharpen their Microsoft Excel skills especially in the area of charting.

The Excel tutorials at Chandoo.org have always been my favorite and are well worth checking out. See http://budurl.com/exceltutorial

Pointy Haired Dilbert (PHD – the editor of Chandoo.org and author of Excel Forumla Helper) is now offering EXCEL SCHOOL.

The content is awesome and some really excellent excel tutorials are going to be offered.

Check out the content:

Tags: Excel tutorials

Dashboard design, enterprise dashboards, scorecards, kpi metrics, enterprise reporting – these are just some of the topics to be found at http://dashboards.org

Regards Hubert Lee
The Dashboard Spy

Contract Project KPIs tracked on Project Management Dashboard

This project management dashboard shows the billable and non-billable costs on contract projects.

The key performance measures (KPI) include

• Cost
• Percent of budget
• Billable cost
• Percent of cost
• Non-billable cost

Excel web query powers this fuel price report dashboard

Kaylan Verma (myxcelsius.com) is the creator of this dashboard and had this to say:

I used Excel Web Queries connected to AAA data. The data is being pulled from http://www.fuelgaugereport.com/. The IQY files were modified to pick up parameters from certain cells and those cells were dynamically changed by the List Box input. So when the user clicks on a state from the list box, it inserts the state value in the destination cell which is linked to the parameter of the Web Query. The web query is set to refresh when there is a change in the parameter cell.

The web query results were mapped to certain cells which make up the source data for the charts. I had to use Lookups since the web query had a state abbreviation in it.

Dashboard for security content logging and data mining

Regulatory, legal and compliance requirements now force companies to not only understand network activity from a threat perspective, but to proactively manage and mitigate certain protection measures and enforce acceptable use policies.

Here are some screenshots of a web security dashboard called FortiAnalyzer.

Web Security Dashboard

Customized security environment reports and graphs

Be sure to check out these dashboard examples of security management dashboards.

Dsahboards from The Dashboard Spy

Start your own blog about dashboards at http://dashboards.org

Marketing Key Performance Indicator Dashboard

This simple-looking, text-based dashboard tracks Marketing Management KPIs in a very straight-forward fashion.

The Marketing Management dashboard enables the marketing professionals to quickly determine the health of the marketing department. This dashboard contains the KPI region and reports on campaign to cash, campaign ROI, and budgets. The Marketing
Management dashboard facilitates comparing data of the current period with prior periods and helps analyze trends in lead generation, lead conversion, cost per lead, and revenue per lead, thereby providing historic trend data to plan future objectives.

The KPI region includes a snapshot of key performance data and enables marketing professionals to quickly assess the health of the marketing department. The KPIs present information on key marketing areas, such as lead generation, lead conversion, won opportunities amount, booked orders and so on. You can quantify, compare, measure, and track KPIs against prior periods to view historic trenddata. Some KPIs provide additional drill-down details, others display one level of summary data. By selecting a specific link within the region, you can drill down for more details.

Leads from Customers New Leads created during the selected period from existing customers. Customer is a person or an organization with which the company has a selling relationship, regardless of whether anything has actually been purchased or serviced. A customer is a party with a customer account.
Leads from Prospects New Leads created during the selected period from prospects. A prospect is a person or
organization, which the company, does not yet have a selling relationship.
‘A’ Leads Leads created during the specified period and
with a lead rank of ‘A’ as of the sys date.
‘A’ Leads % Leads created during the specified period and
with a lead rank of ‘A’ as of the sys date and as
a % of new leads.
New Opportunities Amount The sum of the sales credit amount of all opportunities with a marketing source created
within the specified period.
Won Opportunities Amount The sum of the sales credit amount of all opportunities with a marketing source that
have the:
• Close date within the selected current
period
• Closed flag set
• Won flag set

Cost Per Lead The marketing budgetary cost of generating all leads.
The Cost Per Lead displays expenses associated to each lead during the selected period. Based on the profile settings, either PTD Cost or Total Cost is displayed. Program cost calculations are defined from either the approved budget amount or the actual cost value.
Revenue Per Lead The booked revenue ratio resulting from all generated leads.
Lead to Opportunity Conversion Percentage of leads converted to opportunities during the specified period irrespective of when the leads were created.
Campaign Started Number of campaigns started during the selected period.
Events Started Number of events started during the selected period.

As you see in the dashboard’s screenshot, you can track projects in your portfolio in terms of status and financial metrics. The dashboard system allows for the performance of cost/benefit analysis for the entire project portfolio as well as at the individual project level.

Microsoft Access dashboards make use of Access VB to enable system functionality. A demo for a Project Portfolio Management Template can be downloaded from Opengate.

Microsoft Access Dashboard Screenshot (click to enlarge):

Project Portfolio Management Dashboard Created with Microsoft Access

Tags: Microsoft Access Dashboards for Project Porfolio Tracking and Performance Management, MS Access Dashboard. opengate UI builder for Microsoft Access.

• Brand Metrics
  • Brand Awareness
  • Brand Commitment
  • Brand Attributes
• Advertising Metrics
  • Advertising Awareness
  • Source of Ad Awareness
  • Message Association
• Purchase Metrics
  • Market Share
  • Frequency Profile
  • Repeat Purchase

Here is the marketing dashboard screenshot. Click on the image to enlarge it.

This brand marketing dashboard was implemented with Xcelsius

For more marketing dashboards, see:

Marketing Dashboard Best Practices

Also, see these Dashboard Experts

Use this link to visit the new service:

Dashboards

Video Blog about Dashboards and Business Intelligence

Dashboard Spy readers, let me know what you think. Would you watch videos about dashboards? If you have some good videos on youtube that you’d like me to post to Dashboards.TV, add the link to the comments below.

The Dashboard Spy

Visit the iDashboards Beijing Olympics Scorecard.

Here is a screenshot of the medal count page:

Here is the Olympics Scorecard page:

The daily updated dashboard provides a summary of the day’s athletic results and an interactive world map highlights participating countries and corresponding medal tallies. The dashboards’ unique hover-and-click capabilities enable fans to drill down through each country’s results by sporting event and individual athlete performance. For Olympic enthusiasts, an additional dashboard provides even greater detail and the ability to compare results from across the globe with the help of graphic bar charts, speedometers, gauges, interactive country flags, and medals.

Tags: 2008 Olympic Medal Count, Beijing Olympics Dashboard, Olympic Scorecard, Olympic Dashboard, Olympics Dashboard

The Navy has an overarching program called Naval Aviation Enterprise (NAE) that is operated much like a $60 billion corporation. It’s overall vision is to “To deliver the right force with the right readiness at the right cost at the right time … today, and in the future.”

“It’s about collaborating, sharing and enhancing our business practices. Not to turn the Navy into a business, but to understand the business of the Navy so that we remain the most effective and efficient Navy in the world.”

– CNO Admiral Gary Roughead, March 2008

Let’s have a look at an enterprise dashboard (what the Navy likes to call Cockpit Charts) that monitors progress to goal in the area of mission readiness.

Here is a screenshot. In the interest of security, I’m showing a low-resolution image. Click on the “read more” link after the screen shot for a discussion of the relevant metrics used in this readiness dashboard.

Enterprise Dashboard used by the US Navy

Let’s have a look at the metrics featured on this enterprise dashboard:

The Navy has provided an explanation of the KPIs on this dashboard. The synopsis is presented in this image which lays out the explanations in a manner similar to the dashboard itself.

KPIs for Naval Aviation Enterprise Dashboard

For those truly interested in the nitty gritty, here is a closer look at one of the metrics as well as an overall explanation of the dashboard metrics.

Metrics used by the US Navy for mission readiness

Metrics, which are used to track and measure performance, are key elements to achieving cost-wise readiness.   Presenting that information to decision-makers and stakeholders can be daunting when different type/model/series (T/M/Ss), systems and missions are involved.   The Cockpit chart (CpC) is a set of seven graphics used by the Naval Aviation Enterprise (NAE) to depict Current Readiness information in a coherent, uniform and concise format.  The two main charts (called “panels”) are the Overall Mission-Rating (M-Rating) Accomplishment and the RFT (Ready for Tasking) Availability.  

The Overall M-Rating Accomplishment

Each T/M/S CpC includes result and driver measurements. Driver measurements are the issues that “drive” the results for readiness.  As the numbers in the driver panels change, so should the result panels.   Just like in an aircraft, CpCs monitor performance; one indicator does not reveal the entire health of a T/M/S.  The “panels” and “gauges” only alert leadership to the possibility of a problem that require deeper research and investigation to determine its root cause.

The Dashboard Spy is now collecting the best business intelligence dashboard white papers and business trade magazines for his readers to read and learn from.

Recently featured are the following two white papers on dashboard best practices:

Business Intelligence Best Practices for Dashboard Design by Information Builders

Worst Practices in Business Intelligence by Information Builders

Come visit the Dashboards by Example Featured White Papers and Trade Magazines.

Tags: IT Whitepapers, The Dashboard Spy

A pet peeve of mine is when I come across literature from business intelligence vendors that discuss business dashboard technology and dashboards at length without including screenshots. I come across this quite a bit and it just irks me.

A couple of years ago, a Dashboard Spy reader pointed me to this Microsoft article about an Isreali Police Department dashboard case study and asked if I would please track down some screenshots of the dashboard.

Well, it took almost two years, but here are some screenshots of the performance dashboard used by the Isreali police to track over 100 KPIs for their 27,000 officers. The technology behind the performance dashboard is Microsoft Office Business Scorecard Manager 2005.

Click on the examples to enlarge the screenshots. These digital dashboards are in Hebrew, so I can’t tell you exactly which metrics are shown on these screens.

Tags: Digital Dashboard Example, Isreali Police Dashboards

Consider the use of mini tooltip dashboards.

Your business dashboard is for graphically showing the state of your business metrics in an easy-to-digest fashion, isn’t it? Well then, don’t forget to take advantage of every facet of your BI dashboard application to keep up that visual information theme. What do I mean?

Take tool tips for example. You can put data into hover-over tooltips like this of course.

A plain list like this:

Can turn into something informationally richer with tooltips such as this:

But how about going further and turning each tooltip into a little dashboard complete with red/yellow/green status indicators like this?

Let’s see these mini tooltip dashboards on your next business intelligence reporting project!

Tags: Dashboard Design, Tooltip Dashboards

In terms of background, Silverlight is a Microsoft technology. It is a framework for providing rich applications to the web browser and is generally thought of as a competitor to Adobe’s Flash. Unlike Flash, however, Silverlight applications are delivered to a browser in a text-based markup language called XAML. This means that search engines can scan XAML (as opposed to not being able to look inside compiled Flash applications), giving Silverlight an edge in terms of search engine optimization.

Here are some screenshots of the Infragistics Silverlight demo. The interactive demo is called faceOut and can be found at
http://labs.infragistics.com/silverlight/faceout/
. You’ll need to have Silverlight 2 installed on your machine to view the demo. Hit the more link further down on this page and look for a video of the dashboard if you don’t wish to install Silverlight at this time.

Here are some screenshots.

Here is what you get if you don’t have Silverlight installed:

Here are some screenshots of the sales dashboard:

First, select a customer:

Then here is the Silverlight dashboard:

And here is the video I captured of the Infragistics Silverlight dashboard. Click on the image to visit the video.

Tags: Silverlight dashboard, customer dashboards