Dashboard (computing)
In computer information systems, a dashboard is a type of graphical user interface which often provides at-a-glance views of data relevant to a particular objective or process through a combination of visualizations and summary information. In other usage, "dashboard" is another name for "progress report" or "report" and is considered a form of data visualization.
The dashboard is often accessible by a web browser and is typically linked to regularly updating data sources. Dashboards are often interactive and facilitate users to explore the data themselves, usually by clicking into elements to view more detailed information.
The term dashboard originates from the automobile dashboard where drivers monitor the major functions at a glance via the instrument panel.
History
The idea of digital dashboards followed the study of decision support systems in the 1970s. Early predecessors of the modern business dashboard were first developed in the 1980s in the form of Executive Information Systems. Due to problems primarily with data refreshing and handling, it was soon realized that the approach wasn't practical as information was often incomplete, unreliable, and spread across too many disparate sources. Thus, EISs hibernated until the 1990s when the information age quickened pace and data warehousing, and online analytical processing allowed dashboards to function adequately. Despite the availability of enabling technologies, the dashboard use didn't become popular until later in that decade, with the rise of key performance indicators, and the introduction of Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton's balanced scorecard. In the late 1990s, Microsoft promoted a concept known as the Digital Nervous System and "digital dashboards" were described as being one leg of that concept. Today, the use of dashboards forms an important part of Business Performance Management. Initially dashboards were used for monitoring purposes, now with the advancement of technology, dashboards are being used for more analytical purposes. The use of dashboards has now been incorporating; scenario analysis, drill down capabilities, and presentation format flexibility.Benefits
Digital dashboards allow managers to monitor the contribution of the various departments in their organization. In addition, they enable “rolling up” of information to present a consolidated view across an organization. To gauge exactly how well an organization is performing overall, digital dashboards allow you to capture and report specific data points from each department within the organization, thus providing a "snapshot" of performance.Benefits of using digital dashboards include:
- Visual presentation of performance measures
- Ability to identify and correct negative trends
- Measure efficiencies/inefficiencies
- Ability to generate detailed reports showing new trends
- Ability to make more informed decisions based on collected business intelligence
Align strategies and organizational goals
- Gain total visibility of all systems instantly
- Quick identification of data outliers and correlations
- Consolidated reporting into one location
- Available on mobile devices to quickly access metrics
Classification
Strategic dashboards support managers at any level in an organization and provide the quick overview that decision-makers need to monitor the health and opportunities of the business. Dashboards of this type focus on high-level measures of performance and forecasts. Strategic dashboards benefit from static snapshots of data that are not constantly changing from one moment to the next.
Dashboards for analytical purposes often include more context, comparisons, and history, along with subtler performance evaluators. In addition, analytical dashboards typically support interactions with the data, such as drilling down into the underlying details. Dashboards for monitoring operations are often designed differently from those that support strategic decision making or data analysis and often require monitoring of activities and events that are constantly changing and might require attention and response at a moment's notice.
Types of dashboards
Digital dashboards may be laid out to track the flows inherent in the business processes that they monitor. Graphically, users may see the high-level processes and then drill down into low-level data. This level of detail is often buried deep within the corporate enterprise and otherwise unavailable to the senior executives.Three main types of digital dashboards dominate the market today: desktop software applications, web-browser-based applications, and desktop applications are also known as desktop widgets. The last are driven by a widget engine.
Both Desktop and Browser-based providers enable the distribution of dashboards via a web browser. An example of the latter is web-based-browser Asana, which helps teams orchestrate their work, from daily tasks to strategic cross-functional initiatives. With it, teams can manage everything from company objectives to digital transformation to product launches and marketing campaigns.
Specialized dashboards may track all corporate functions. Examples include human resources, recruiting, sales, operations, security, information technology, project management, customer relationship management, digital marketing and many more departmental dashboards. For a smaller organization like a startup a compact startup scorecard dashboard tracks important activities across lot of domains ranging from social media to sales.
Digital dashboard projects involve business units as the driver and the information technology department as the enabler. Therefore, the success of dashboard projects depends on the relevancy/importance of information provided within the dashboard. This includes the metrics chosen to monitor and the timeliness of the data forming those metrics; data must be up to date and accurate.
Key performance indicators, balanced scorecards, and sales performance figures are some of the content appropriate on business dashboards.
Performance Dashboards
Dashboards involve the combination of visual and functional features. This combination of features helps improve cognition and interpretation. A performance dashboard sits at the intersection of two powerful disciplines: business intelligence and performance management. Therefore, there are different users who could use these dashboards for different reasons. For example, a level of workers could look at monitoring inventory while those in more managerial roles can look at lagging measure. Then executives could utilize the dashboard to evaluate strategic performance against objectives.Dashboards and scorecards
s and dashboards have been linked together as if they were interchangeable. However, although both visually display critical information, the difference is in the format: Scorecards can open the quality of an operation while dashboards provide calculated direction. A balanced scorecard has what they called a "prescriptive" format. It should always contain these components:- Perspectives – group
- Objectives – verb-noun phrases pulled from a strategy plan
- Measures – also called metric or key performance indicators
- Spotlight indicators – red, yellow, or green symbols that provide an at-a-glance view of a measure's performance.
The design of a dashboard is more loosely defined. Dashboards are usually a series of graphics, charts, gauges and other visual indicators that can be monitored and interpreted. Even when there is a strategic link, on a dashboard, it may not be noticed as such since objectives are not normally present on dashboards. However, dashboards can be customized to link their graphs and charts to strategic objectives.
Design
Digital dashboard technology is available "out-of-the-box" from many software providers. Some companies, however, continue to do in-house development and maintenance of dashboard applications. For example, GE Aviation has developed a proprietary software/portal called "Digital Cockpit" to monitor the trends in the aircraft spare parts business.Good dashboard design practices take into account and address the following:
- the medium it is designed for
- use of visuals over the tabular presentation of data
- bar charts: to visualize one or more series of data
- line charts: to track changes in several dependent data sets over a period of time
- sparklines: to show the trend in a single data set
- scorecards: to monitor KPIs and trends
- use of legends anytime more than one color or shape is present on a graph
- spatial arrangement: place your most important view on the top left then arrange the following views in a Z pattern with the most important information following the top-to-bottom, left-to-right pattern
- use colorblind friendly palettes with color used consistently and only where necessary