Effective and efficient business intelligence dashboard implementation is imperative, for the deployment could potentially make or break decision-making processes. As data analysis and perception expert Stephen Few says, data dashboards are ‘visual displays of the most important data and information one needs in order to achieve one or more goals and objectives’ hence, their importance.

4 effective business intelligence dashboard practices


Listed below are some business intelligence dashboard (BID) practices to help get one started:

Know Your Dashboards

Before one chooses a specific dashboard design, it is imperative to know what the different kinds of traditional dashboards are available in the market. One can choose from Strategic, Analytical, or Operational Dashboards. Strategic BIDs aggregate key company health indicators and help identify opportunities for organizational expansion. Analytical ones are engineered to provide detailed data trends and analyses. Operational BIDs track the overall health of the company, focusing on KPIs which depend on many factors.

Effective and Concise Design

A BID should be designed with two objectives avoiding data clutter and focusing on communication, for a visually appealing design may or may not be effective. BI dashboards should be able to communicate the right, fact-based information concisely and quickly, group elements based on their ‘proximity’/location or similarity, and ideally be enclosed by visual borders for easy and quick viewing. The dashboard should also be able to draw the attention of the users to the most relevant and important pieces of information on the page, for which it shouldn’t be crammed with charts or have a non-appealing interface.

Options to Customize

A great BI Dashboard allows users to customize the dashboard according to their needs, requirements and demands, allowing them to view visual charts and associated visual charts the way they want. This will make way for timely and appropriate decision-making.

Web-based Online Dashboards

With the entire world being online now, working on the extremely dynamic dashboards offline doesn’t make any sense, especially since BIDs are imperative in delivering and analyzing real-time data and information. An offline dashboard is not only archaic, but also obsolete. BIDs are invaluable tools to track business performances, so it only makes sense that they work online, allowing for mistakes to be corrected immediately, exceptions to be reported instantly and crises to be avoided before they snowball. This in turn increases efficiency and improves productivity.

Users and managers ought to keep in mind these basic best dashboard design practices and tips while designing the business intelligence dashboard.

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