A long time Dashboard Spy reader shared his enthusiasm for the way the federal Recovery.gov site presents its transparency dashboards. They use a nicely laid out navigation page at their Recovery Explorer.
Here’s the note I got from GP:
I have enjoyed reading your BI news site for new information on data, visualizations and dashboards etc.
Wanted to share with you a cloud-based analytics platform that the Recovery.gov site just launched.
Your readers might find it interesting. I am not aware of any other information discovery resource in the public sector that surfaces up information in such a fairly clean and yet powerful way.
BTW, all of this is hosted in the cloud.
Here is the Recovery Explorer:
And here is an example of the type of transparency dashboard that it navigates to (screenshot shows a fund award dashboard):
Definitely check these transparency dashboards out. They are powered by SAP and quite impressive.
Exciting Dashboard News from The Dashboard Spy: New Federal IT Portfolio Spending Dashboard Set to Usher in New Level of Business Dashboard Adoption.
Forgive my excitement, but in the course of carefully studying thousands of business intelligence dashboards for the Dashboards By Example blog and various Dashboard Spy publications, I’ve become very confident in my ability to predict which dashboards will truly become “game changers”. Whether because they contain especially compelling data visualizations, are the first ones to “mash up” certain data sources, or come to market with a startlingly new level of user interface design, certain dashboards launch to great acclaim and user acceptance. Some dashboards will achieve a high level of usage and acclaim simply because of the size of the sponsor organization. In this case, when the U.S. government builds and promotes a major dashboard project to publicize the accomplishments of 30 agencies, it is a really big deal.
The new U.S. Federal I.T. Dashboard is now available at http://it.usaspending.gov. Right out of the gate, this business dashboard has ranked on page 1 of the Google search engine and has enjoyed quite a bit of publicity. It is well worth checking out by all business intelligence dashboard designers, users and stakeholders. There is no doubt that this particular dashboard will introduce a great number of new users to the dashboard paradigm.
In the period from June 1, 2009 through June 29, 2009, nearly 400 Federal employees from over 30 agencies tested the I.T. Dashboard. The response within the various agencies was reported to be huge.
Another important point about this dashboard: I’m told that the project went from concept to action in a 90 day period. And keep in mind that this is a government project! I am astounded. Doesn’t this speak volumes about the state of dashboarding technology and best practice?
Let’s have a look at what all the excitement has been about. First we’ll examine a video about the Federal IT Portfolio Dashboard, then look at some dashboard screenshots.
Here’s the video:
When you visit the IT Dashboard at http://it.usaspending.gov/, make sure to spend a few minutes watching the home page. Note how the charts present themselves. They “flip” through a series of different metrics without user intervention. Almost like watching TV, the viewer can simply preview various KPIs right on the home page’s top graphic.
Here are some screenshots of the IT Dashboard.
For more data views and the lower level pages of this dashboard, please visit the Federal IT Portfolio Dashboard.
Update: This dashboard has created quite a bit of buzz. Here was some coverage of the unveiling of the IT Dashboard by National CIO Vivek Kundra. I bet you didn’t know that the United States had a Chief Information Officer!
Here’s a review video that discusses the Federal IT Dashboard:
As mentioned in the above video, this dashboard project was spearheaded by Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra. He appeared in this YouTube video answering questions from citizens on facebook:
PS. Here’s a happy IT Dashboard user. Recognize him? Yes, it’s President Obama using the federal dashboard! Talk about making sure you keep your dashboard user happy!
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