Dashboards by Example
    Dashboard: Examples & Best Practices.   From Excel Dashboards to Enterprise Business Intelligence, these dashboard implementations contain KPIs, metrics, charts, trends and more.

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Archive for May, 2008

This is an archive of the unique and controversial resource on Enterprise Dashboards known as The Dashboard Spy blog on Enterprise Dashboards. This is Volume 1 of the dashboard screenshot collection where you will find 837 dashboard screenshots of various dashboard implementations. Included in this collection are executive dashboards, enterprise dashboards, performance dashboards, corporate dashboards, balanced scorecards, BI dashboards, business intelligence dashboard - the list goes on. What is the difference between all those terms? That's part of the fun! Start studying these screenshots and learn.

Here is an interesting way to find more enterprise dashboards to study: Click this link for a random dashboard. You'll never know what dashboard you'll see next.

Subway System Operational Management Dashboard

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

“Actual KPIs and metrics from real business cases! Real operations dashboards - That’s what we want examples of.” says a long-time reader of The Dashboard Spy who reminded me that I’ve gotten away from showing the nitty gritty details of business intelligence dashboards. She said that it’s all well and good that I’ve been pointing out design fundamentals and implementation best practices, but she misses the hard core “let’s see what other dashboard teams are working on” approach of the old Dashboard Spy days.

OK, I get the message. Let’s focus on more actual dashboards. Today we look at how the managers of the Singapore Subway system monitor the operational status of their trains, stations and other assets. How’s that for a specific business area of focus for us dashboard fans?

First, let’s take a quick journey to Singapore for a quick getaway before buckling down to some business intelligence.

The Mass Rapid Transit system (or MRT) of Singapore is currently composed of a total of 64 operating stations that serve a daily ridership of over 1.5 million people. There are plans for a large expansion project. Among rail buffs, the Singapore MRT system is of note in several areas. The stations are famous for being absolutely spotless. There are multiple train lines of the system, with the northeast line being completely underground using driverless trains. The platforms are sealed off from the tracks with safety screen doors to prevent access to the tracks and ensure climate control. The MRT is complemented by the LRT (Light Rail Transit). The LRT is close in spirit to people mover systems found in airports.

OK. Back to BI, metrics, KPIs and dashboard reports! Now let’s take a look at how they monitor their operations.

Thanks to the good graces of a Dashboard Spy located at the headquarters of Elixir Technology in Singapore, we have the following dashboard screenshots of the operations monitoring dashboard project. The dashboards are powered by Elixir Repertoire - a product for Dashboarding, Reporting, and Data ETL and Scheduling.

Here is the Command and Control Dashboard.

singapore MRT Command Control Dashboard

Click on the “more” link for more dashboard screenshots from this system as well additional commentary.

» Read more about this business intelligence dashboard example: Subway System Operational Management Dashboard ............


If you are new to enterprise dashboards, you really must start by reading the book by Malik:

Enterprise Dashboards: Designs & Best Practices for IT

To give you a flavor of the wonderful nuggets of enterprise dashboard knowledge, here is a quote from Mr. Malik in which he talks about the SMART elements that enterprise dashboards should have:

So, let us establish the basic characteristics specific to an enterprise dashboard with a useful acronym—SMART. A dashboard must be SMART in that it contains the following underlying elements, which are essential for success: