What makes a good bi dashboard

Dashboards and reports can work together to give a comprehensive view of trends and insights, but they are different. Dashboards can be updated in near-real time using cloud-based technology.

They tend to be visual and interactive, allowing the user to engage with the information and create their own analyses. Reports, on the other hand, are static—they offer detail, but the end user must extract insights from a compilation of data. Try Tableau for free to create beautiful visualizations with your data. Try Tableau for free. Modern BI platforms offer a lot of the same key features, with many real-world dashboard examples showcasing some or all of these:.

All of these features contribute to the goal of BI dashboards and lead to overall benefits for the users and for the organization. Business intelligence dashboards enable organizations to make complex data easily understandable and approachable for non-technical users. IT may create content as a starting point, business users can create and view their own dashboards. Self-service BI empowers non-technical users to interact with data. The types of data typically found in BI dashboards are analytics metrics, key performance indicators KPIs , and other data points that play a role in decision-making.

BI dashboards can contain an abundance of data types, but all BI dashboards should present actionable data to inform business decisions - this alone is what defines a dashboard as a business intelligence dashboard. Why a dashboard? It is a common misconception that a dashboard and a report are the same. The most important thing to remember is that while reports and dashboards provide different functionalities and have different use-cases, there are scenarios where a report and dashboard could be interchangeable.

In situations like that, it's a matter of your own personal preference. One of the best things about BI dashboarding is that it is very accessible to all end-users, regardless of technical capability and knowledge. BI dashboards can be created by technical developers, or by non-technical business users.

One factor in the creation of dashboards is the dashboard design tool being used; the simpler the tool, the more accessible it is for end-users to create meaningful and informative BI dashboards.

Some factors that could make a dashboard design tool more difficult to use for business end-users could be a complicated UI a messy layout and unclear design process , or an excessive feature set a dashboard designer that has many unused or unclear features. BI dashboards should be able to be created by even the most non-tech savvy end-user, which makes an intuitive, easy-to-use dashboard creation tool even more important. BI dashboards can be used to convey all kinds of data to help drive the organization's overall success through influencing decisions.

This is the inception of the need for BI dashboarding. Typically, someone in the organization will indicate the need for at-a-glance data visualization to help monitor business performance and inform business decisions.

After evaluating one or more business intelligence tools, you decide to choose the one that meets your requirements and fits your budget. This stage is when you would integrate the BI solution within your existing application or set it up as a stand-alone utility.

This could involve setting up your security provider for data governance, configuring user permissions, and other aspects of embedding a BI tool into your existing environment. Additionally, you would set up data providers, data sets, and row-level security to only see the data they should access. Traditional dashboards will typically be comprised of a multitude of data visualization components, such as Bar, Column, Pie, Doughnut, Area, Line, Tree, and Radar charts.

Naturally, different BI tools will have different data visualization options- make sure the tool you choose has the charts you need! Now that you or your end-users have created a BI dashboard, it is ready to be utilized. There is a dedicated view mode for the dashboards in most business intelligence tools, where end-users will look at the dashboard and interact with the data visualization components. BI reports are often packed with tons of numbers and information, making them hard to digest.

With the right BI tools, you can guide users to the right metrics and trends with visual cues like positioning and a color palette to highlight critical points and subdue insignificant ones.

The visualization that best communicates your data often may not necessarily be the best-looking one. Here, the row chart is less confusing because it uses one color instead of 10 different colors. Assess which category of visualization works best with your data. Some BI solutions even include a wizard or AI-powered helper that can assist you in choosing the right data visualization for the job!

Compare BI Software Leaders. How does that number compare to the target you set for this year? Is that number good, bad, or unusual in any way? Including historical data is an easy way to answer these questions. Note essential milestone dates or compare the numbers with those of previous time frames i.

Pro Tip: make sure to label the axes, columns, rows, legend, etc. Clear, contextual data differentiates an effective dashboard from an ineffective one. This best practice ensures that your BI dashboards help users understand the impact of the information and empower them to take action.

Boring presentations and unintelligible analyst reports are a thing of the past — nowadays, interactive dashboards are the tool of choice to present information. Example of an interactive dashboard from Tableau which explains details when users hover their mouse over a metric and changes the charts when users click on them. Some of the best interactive dashboard features on the market right now include:. Users can focus on the big picture and then drill down at will for specific details.

By giving the user control over which data they want to focus on, an interactive dashboard encourages users to explore for themselves. Interactive dashboards like this one from Klipfolio can give real-time insight at a glance.

Remember, the user needs some breathing space. Experiment and get feedback. Last but not least on our list of BI dashboard best practices is experimenting with different styles and formats.

Sometimes, experiments are the best way to figure out what is best. You can experiment with graphs, colors, icons, and etc. Go to colleagues outside of your organization or department to gain their feedback. Dashboards should be effective and powerful visualizational tools that allow users to see important business data clearly. Modern Business Intelligence dashboard designs are real-time interactive solutions that help organizations make the right decisions.

Creating designs with the above BI dashboard best practices allows you to unfold the full potential that BI software solutions can provide. A few design changes can make a great difference in clarity and usefulness. Download the following infographic in PDF. Silvia Valcheva is a digital marketer with over a decade of experience creating content for the tech industry.

She has a strong passion for writing about emerging software and technologies such as big data, AI Artificial Intelligence , IoT Internet of Things , process automation, etc. Currently you have JavaScript disabled. In order to post comments, please make sure JavaScript and Cookies are enabled, and reload the page. Click here for instructions on how to enable JavaScript in your browser. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Choose the type of dashboard There are three most common types of dashboard design.

Each serves a particular purpose. Operational dashboards — they are used to monitor specific business processes that repeatedly change and focus on tracking the performance of key KPIs.

Strategic dashboards — collect key business health indicators and are used mostly by executives and C-level managers who aim to find new opportunities for business growth. The data provided by strategic dashboard updates on a less frequent basis than operational dashboards.

Analytical dashboard — it is a reporting tool used to deliver detailed data analyses that allow users to uncover trends, predict outcomes, and gain valuable insights. Choose the right metrics It is clear that you cannot include all metrics in your dashboard. To determine metrics, consider things such as: What are the core business goals? Can you design metrics that contribute to those goals? What do the users need to learn from the data?