What is the recipe for a perfect dashboard?

This recipe is based on Scandic Fusion framework. However, it's important to note that these ingredients don't guarantee a flawless outcome. Just like the best lasagna recipe may not satisfy everyone's taste, variables come into play.  

Steps before developing a dashboard

Get to know the end-users

• Identify different user groups and usage scenarios. Keep in mind security filters!
• Ask about end-user experience with BI tools & technologies.
• Identify intended usage of the dashboard and visualizations - device or presentation format they are planned for

Inspire users during the requirement definition process

• Show a demo dashboard which represents the BI tool functionality & dashboard best practices.
• Help to define requirements by providing a template with examples.

Get inspired

• Review dashboards from public galleries
• Ask for a real or virtual tour to understand business processes

Review & prepare the data model

• Check if all needed granularity/measures are available
• Test data quality & play with data
• Evaluate if new logic needs to be implemented

Developing a dashboard

Start with a prototype – potential user story

• Draw a simple schema with navigations and objects per page
• Validate the structure with different user groups
• Check the data limits/performance for the initial structure. Having a high number of objects per page or too many rows   can impact performance!

Supplement the data model

• Adjust the existing data for dashboard use (create groups, prepare final measures – scaling, aggregation and format)

Validate the data & dashboard concept

• Create a draft version with navigations and give it for testing before creating the whole dashboard
• Test various use cases & performance for each user group
• Create control reports (raw data or intermediate results of the complex calculations)
• Test usability (Interactions, structure)

Make a dashboard user-friendly

• Add notes, icons, helpful insights
• Create a welcome page with navigation map
• Add help or technical info page with used sources

Going live!

Launch the dashboard

• Demonstrate the dashboard or create a short video
• Organize BI tool training

Make your dashboard better

• Ask for feedback, create a survey about dashboard usability and missing functionality
• Continuous improvements
• Provide documentation/ instructions
• Monitor usage statistics

Celebrate! 🎉

Extra karma points

• Follow reporting consistency guidelines or establish them if they don’t exist
• Use a BI template/style sheets/themes with pre-defined formatting
• Follow specific BI tool best practices
• Follow the naming principles
• Create backup versions during the development process
• Register ideas or cases when there is missing functionality
• Save developer notes for the documentation
• Capture a print screen of the final result
• Perform a quality check by reviewing the dashboard and removing unnecessary objects