Dupage Medical Group Case Study

The dashboard should be viewed as a platform that helps drive decisions. Here is where the trinity mindset discussed in Kaushik’s blog ‘Occam’s Razor’ can help us design better dashboards. “Actionable Insights & Metrics are the uber-goal simply because they drive strategic differentiation and a sustainable competive advantage.” (Kaushik, 2006)

Dashboards are a visual representation of the overall business processes and magnify their successes and/or failures

Executive Dashboards are those strategic dashboards which display various KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to those departments who use it to analyze various functions.

Visibility : An executive dashboard gives you great visibility and insight. You know exactly what’s going on in all aspects of your business. This allows you to better manage it.

Doing this will bring users to the most important pieces of information located on the dashboard. When doing this it is key to avoid clutter, such as visibly unnecessary chart types. With any unnecessary information or visuals it can distract and turn the users away from the data being shown. A practice that goes along with this is using “color appropriately and sparingly to achieve maximum contrast” (Lach, 2012). When designing a dashboard of reports the color selection should be thought out to enhance readability of charts. The precise selection and use of color will help bring the users’ attention to the significant trends, developments, and actions. Making data points different from one another and from the charts and backgrounds will help the important information be seen. On the other hand, if there are too many colors being used it can be hard to find and grasp the information. A cool trick is to relate colors to their symbolic or metaphoric meaning, such as red equals bad. Another practice is to select the best visualizations, not the best looking visualizations. Imagery should be kept simple and the focus should be on the data not the dashboard. Too flashy visuals and chart types should not be used when there are simpler alternatives for users to understand the same message. When designing, the dashboard context should always be provided. If there is no context, then the data visuals presented are basically useless. Finally, dashboards should have support and prompt action. “After drilling to detail to ascertain the root cause of a notable change or event, users must be enabled with a range of options to share the new information and their associated thoughts with others, in order to drive appropriate resultant action” (Lach, 2012). BI dashboards should be effective and efficient for businesses to view their data. These are the best BI dashboard practices I have researched that will

The account dashboard tab also features a line graph which can show two account performance metrics for the date range selected. You can move a dotted line along the graph to view the metrics at that particular time. The graph can be expanded to a full screen view using the small expand button in the right hand corner of the graph.

multiple components and presents it in a unified display. A digital dashboard is a form of

In the IT (Information Technology) industry, the term Dashboard is user to refer a graphical user interface (GUI) that arranges and exhibits data in a way that is easy to read, comprehend and interpret. It is a snappy and simple approach to give executives a summary of their organization 's performance in real-time.

One of the first reports used is the Company Dashboard Report. This is a visual report displaying key performance indicators, current status of metrics, and can be tailored for a department’s metrics or the overall company metrics. The dashboard provides data for a specific measure of time (Rouse, 2016) versus a Scorecard, which provides it for a period of time. It is an important tool for any business looking for departmental information. The information from this report comes from within the company and provides a snapshot of where the company stands. The PharmaSim dashboard shows a snapshot of the overview of the company that includes revenue, gross margin, net income, and stock price. It also has a bar chart based on the department’s metrics. In this case, Allround’s performance is shown (Performance Summary Period 1, 2016). The last portion of the dashboard includes customer comments from social media. This allows for the department to see customer feedback on a real-time basis and make decisions to improve brand performance.

When thinking about Business Intelligence tools for visual interfaces (dashboards) to assist in monitoring business performance, Tableau is currently all the rage and the top of many companies’ wish lists for software to incorporate into their business and skills for those in which they employ. However, for many companies the investment in both the software and the people with the skills to use Tableau may be just out of reach… especially for companies who are cautious to “jump on the bandwagon” for what is the current hot trend in the market.

As data becomes abundant in today’s world, it is too difficult to track every single metric on a daily or weekly basis. Therefore, the best approach to provide insights and locate certain pertinent bits of data is to use a dashboard. The dashboard serves to show all of the key metrics you would like to track and their changes since the last review all in one place. Dashboards should be simple and easy to read in seconds. Dashboards that display the best metrics and key performance indicators in the best manner should serve to drive actions and decisions. (Kaushik 2010.)

The Business Intelligence dashboard is a streamlined, easily accessible, and more accurate and significant reporting process. It presents the ability to gauge performance, understand the impact of

In the IT (Information Technology) industry, the term Dashboard is used to refer a graphical user interface (GUI) that arranges and exhibits data in a way that is easy to read, comprehend and interpret. It is a snappy and simple approach to give executives a summary of their organization 's performance in real-time.

According to Lavinsky (2013), an executive dashboard is a visual illustration that gives the management team a fast and easy means of viewing the real-time performance of their organization. Also known as Strategic Dashboards, they provide information for executives to align the activities with the business goals, answer critical questions, and boost productivity. Real-time decisions can be made through the massive amount of data since the dashboard combines and organizes numbers, scorecards, and key performance indicators (KPI) in a single screen. The screen is a simple interface made for the managers and supervisors within an organization (The Huffington Post, 2016). The interface should sieve information like the customer relation management (CRM) system, email system, and accounting programs to simplify the management work.

Executive information systems make a variety of critical information readily available in a highly summarized and convenient form, typically via a graphical digital dashboard. Senior managers characteristically employ many informal sources of information, however, so that formal, computerized information systems are only of partial assistance. Nevertheless, this assistance is important for the chief executive officer, senior and executive vice presidents, and the board of directors to monitor the performance of the company, assess the business environment, and develop strategic directions for the future. In particular, these executives need to compare their organization’s performance with that of its competitors and investigate general economic trends in regions or countries. Often individualized and relying on multiple media formats, executive information systems give their users an opportunity to “drill down” from summary information to increasingly focused details.