Management Dashboards
Dashboards provide quick information on your company’s key activities. By getting the information in real time, you can identify the elements that require action and thus ensure the proper functioning of your operations. Sunny Experience is the ultimate solution for companies looking to track their KPIs. We create easy-to-use dashboards that allow you to closely track your company’s progress. So you can focus on what’s really important: achieving your goals!
The Benefits of a Management Dashboard
- Data transparency – Data is the most important asset of any business. However, there is no point in doing so if no one can understand or access the information. A well-designed dashboard provides on-demand access to all your important metrics.
- Data access – As the name suggests, a dashboard brings together multiple data sources in a single interface. This means you can immediately see a detailed overview of your business at a glance. Best of all, it reduces the time it takes to compile reports, saving you time.
- Better decision-making – Dashboards provide an unbiased view of not only the overall performance of the company, but also of each department. If each department is able to access the dashboard, they all have a better basis for subsequent dialogues and sound decision-making. For example, sales and marketing can align its data and experiences to increase customer acquisition and improve lead generation. Business dashboards are a good starting point for these decisions, which is one of their biggest advantages.
- Accountability – While it’s always nice to see what you’re doing well, you also need to see and understand what’s imperfect in order to increase your performance. Business dashboards can show you exactly where your problems are and provide you with the information you need to improve. Plus, by making dashboards visible throughout the company, they can judge different departments responsible for the ups and downs.
- Interactivity – Some of the best dashboards offer a dynamic experience. Rather than providing static information, you and your users can filter data, interact with charts to see changes over time, and even allow an ad hoc component on the fly. This means that you can get little or a lot of details on specific metrics, depending on your wishes.
Design Dashboards Efficiently
A dashboard is a visual display of the information needed to achieve one or more goals that are consolidated and organized on a single screen so that the information can be monitored at a glance. To effectively design dashboards, you need to understand some facts about visual perception; what works, what doesn’t and why.
- Dashboards display the information needed to achieve specific goals. Achieving even a single goal often requires access to a collection of information that is not otherwise linked, often from a variety of sources related to various business functions. It’s not just the information that leaders or even directors need; it can be information that is needed by anyone with goals to achieve. The information required can be, and often is, a set of KPIs, but it’s important to keep in mind that other types of information may also be needed to do a good job.
- A dashboard fits on a single computer screen. The information must be fully available at a glance so that it can be seen at the same time. If you have to scroll through your screen to see all the information, it has a transgression of the limits of a dashboard. Also, if you have to switch between screens to see everything, you are using multiple dashboards. The goal is to easily and effortlessly have the most important information so that you can quickly assimilate what you need to know.
- Information is presented at the right time. Does the information need to be constantly updated in real time? Yes, but only if the purposes it serves require it in real time. For example, if you monitor air traffic using a dashboard, you should be notified immediately in case of problems. On the other hand, if you’re making strategic decisions about how to increase sales, a snapshot of last night’s information, or even the end of last month, should be enough.
- Dashboards are used to monitor information at a glance. Despite the fact that information about almost anything can be displayed appropriately in a dashboard, there is at least one feature that describes almost all the information found in dashboards: it is abbreviated as summaries or exceptions. This is because you can’t control all the details needed to achieve your goals at a glance. A dashboard should be able to quickly signal that something deserves your attention and may require an action. It does not need to provide all the details necessary to take action, but if it does not, it must make access to information as simple and transparent as possible. Achieving this may involve moving to a different view beyond the dashboard using navigation methods such as hierarchical exploration. The dashboard does its main job if it tells you at a glance that you need to act. It serves you admirably if it directly opens the door to any additional information you need to take this step. This is the essence of the dashboard.
- Dashboards have small, concise, clear and intuitive display mechanisms. Display mechanisms that clearly express their messages without taking up much space are necessary so that the entire collection of information takes place in the limited space of a single screen. Using a visual that resembles a fuel gauge, traffic light or thermometer may be useful, but is not necessarily the best visual available. It is important to think about other opportunities to be sure of the best visual to use. Insisting on known visuals when others would work better is counterproductive.
- Dashboards are customized according to the user. The information on a dashboard must be tailored specifically to the needs of a given person, group or function otherwise it will not serve its purpose.