Dashboard

Dashboard Spy Update: Using desktop widget technology for information delivery and visualization is a cutting edge idea that is catching on. By bringing the information up to the desktop layer, the user gets the information even sooner than launching a browser or application. For a related post on how Business Objects is doing Dashboard Widgets, be sure to visit this post: Business Intelligence Dashboard Widgets.

Oracle Fusion is the company’s massive project to come up with a new suite of java-based ERP applications that combine the various products Oracle has acquired with the original eBusiness suite. PeopleSoft Enterprise, Siebel for CRM, Retek for retail, JD Edwards World and Enterprise One - all these need to roll into one integrated experience. It’s an interesting challenge. For background, see this excellent paper on the reaction of Oracle customers to Fusion.

Dashboards will figure heavily in the Fusion applications. These dashboards are being positioned as a bigh benefit for users.  Early on in the project cycle, as part of some proof of concepts, Oracle released some sales dashboards and some CRM dashboard. These leveraged aspects of the PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne applications.

What is really interesting is that the design of the Fusion dashboards are forward-thinking. Note for example, the incorporation of widget technology for delivering business intelligence.

Look at this screenshot of a user desktop. There is a dashboard widget on the desktop!

» Read more about this business intelligence dashboard example: The Oracle Fusion Dashboard Widget ............

A sales dashboard is the killer app for all sales people. Not just for tracking opportunities, sales efforts and pipeline, but in keeping tabs on commissions and other compensation-related data. I have never been in an organization where there isn’t a struggle for the sales folks to get their compensation right.

A sales person’s focus, of course, should be on closing opportunities, but,  in reality, some days in the month are spent arguing with the back office over credits, commissions and incentives. Wouldn’t it be nice, if all this was displayed transparently on a sales compensation dashboard during the month for all to track?

A Dashboard Spy working on a sales dashboard sent me these screenshots that he was studying:

Look at the user controls, recognize them? Yep…

» Read more about this business intelligence dashboard example: Sales Compensation Dashboard ............

Dashboard Spy readers know my passion for dashboards and their growing role in presenting corporate metrics and KPIs. After all, I’ve collected and blogged about over a thousand dashboard examples. I truly believe that the dashboard is the new face of business intelligence. Their ease of use and user-centered design really makes information digestible and actionable.

Dashboards are rapidly becoming ubiquitous throughout the enterprise.

However, even I will admit that there are some places we should not take dashboard technology, no matter how strongly we want to promote the role of dashboards in business technology.

Startled by this claim? So, am I. Until a recent visit to one of the world’s top financial firms, I was convinced that dashboards should be distributed to every nook and cranny of the enterprise. There shouldn’t be a single spot in the building that employees can’t check on their metrics, right?

Well, let’s start off with this snapshot I took. It starts off innocently enough. I spotted this clever physical, real-world dashboard in the hallway near the break room. It’s a collection of sheets summarizing the performance of various business units. The pages are set into plastic containers so that you help yourself to a report of interest to you:

Not so strange. Kind of nice actually. As you walk by, you can grab a page to view the metrics you are interested in. As you see, there are 2 spots that contained content more popular than the rest. That’s interesting feedback.

Turns out, however, that this isn’t the only place one finds these dashboards. Take a look at these photos:

» Read more about this business intelligence dashboard example: 1 Place NOT to Have a Dashboard ............

The best way to compare the relative merits of one dashboard platform to another is to build the same business intelligence dashboard in both technologies. That way, you get to experience the strengths and weaknesses of the various software products and technologies.

Now, to really get a sense of what each software product brings to the table, one should not merely try to replicate the dashboard pixel for pixel. Rather, start right from the beginning (remember that pesky user requirements phase?) and see if you can apply a unique solution to some of the data visualization challenges at hand. That way you can identify those unique value adds that certain platforms offer. Maybe one package is better at charting, or perhaps another is best at interactive controls.

The dashboard software vendors do this exercise all the time. Let’s take a look, for example, at the workflow that Robert Allison of SAS uses. Robert is a real pro at using SAS/GRAPH and has compared his platform against many others. He’ll often take a look at a dashboard example from another vendor and replicate it for competitive intelligence purposes.

Let’s first look at a typical target dashboard. Here is a dashboard from the Visual Mining NetCharts reporting platform:

NetCharts Dashboard

» Read more about this business intelligence dashboard example: How to Hold a Business Intelligence Dashboard Technology Bake-off ............

Digital dashboard designers today take a lot for granted. By that I mean they assume that their users have access to broadband speeds as well as modern browsers.

Remember when such assumptions certainly could NOT be made? Back in the day, website designers offered text versions of even simple web pages.

Have you ever heard of offerring both a full (rich interface) and text version of a digital dashboard?

That brings us to today’s

digital dashboard

example. Did you know that in the U.S., all 50 states and the District of Columbia jointly run a collaborative dashboard that tracks the nation’s cyber security status? The Department of Homeland security recognizes the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) as the national center for the states to coordinate cyber readiness and response. Below is just a screenshot of the dashboard, so use this link to take a look at their nifty flash-based cyber security digital dashboard.

» Read more about this business intelligence dashboard example: Digital Dashboard Leads Way to Cyber Security Readiness ............