Dashboards, Reporting & Business Intelligence

In this article we will take an Excel source containing scorecard information and convert into dials and speedometer charts.

We will also create few bar trending charts.

Consider the below sample data

Source File: You can download the excel file here

 

 

 

 

The above excel file tracks few metrics such as safety, quality and revenue. This is just a sample data and may not make sense in actual world but just imagine a manufacturing company that wants to track its overall safety and quality score and also track its total revenue. Now the company may use its own method at deriving the individual safety and quality scores.

They may have a dedicated team to collect safety violations and product defects and then use some formulae to convert those data into final score for any given month. We are not concerned with any of the methods on how those scores are generated. You are the dashboard person and the company has provided you the metrics by each month and now your job is produce a nice dashboard that shows relevant charts for the given data.

Since the data is tracked for each month, it makes sense to show a line or bar chart trending for the metrics.

Dials and Speedometers are relevant when we need to show performance of a single value. So in this case, since we have 12 month data, how do we show single value on the meter chart?

One solution is to show an ‘Average’ value for the safety and Quality metrics or we could show a dial that shows the current month values.

So the GOAL for this exercise is: Show bar chart for Safety trending 12 months and show average and current month value on the dial chart.

Dial chart requirement: For the dial chart, we are measuring the performance, whether we are on track or missed the goal. In order to achieve that, we create three new columns for safety such as ’safety_bad’, ’safety_ok’, safety_good’. These values need to be decided by the company management. If you are not sure, then look at previous year data and decide what should be good and bad values. The dials are used to guide the company to perform better or atleast improve that portion of the company operation represented by the metric.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First let us create the date hierarchy columns from the Period column. You need to make sure that the Period column is an actual Excel date column, else the hierarchy will not be generated

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right click on the period column, select Create -> Add Year, Quarter, Month columns

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you see we added the year and month columns. We may not use all of the above columns but having them ready gives us the option during the chart building.

Now right click on the “Name” and select ‘Create Chart”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We selected the ‘Bar’ chart type

For the x-axis we select the month column and for the y – axis we select the Safety metric

Next, we click on the “Create Chart” button

This action takes us to the below dialog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We rename the chart to ‘Safety’ and then click on ‘Fully Apply’

This action create the below chart (You may need to move the screens and dialog around to see the chart behind)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now having the chart wizard open, we change the selection to ‘Dial’ chart

Check the Dial chart options below

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We modify the options as below

• You can type the low and high range values for each range on the dial.
• In our case, we have defined the safety bad, ok and good values in our spreadsheet so when our goals change, we just change the spreadsheet and the dials will automatically take care. Also, what if we needed different goals for each month so rather than hard coding the range in the chart, we get them from the excel file

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We first change the label sequence for the “Region Name” from “Bad” -> “Warning” -> to “Good”. For the dial chart the labels are not used so make sure that the colors are selected appropriately.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You may click on the color icon to change the colors of your choice

Next, we select the range boundary values

 

 

 

 

 

The safety_bad value from our spreadsheet represents the lower boundary of our bad region, “safety_ok” represents the upper boundary of our bad region, similarly ’safety_ok’ is the lower bound for our ‘ok’ region and so on. For the ‘Good’ upper bound we simply typed a value but as general practice we should have one more column for the upper bound of the final region. In our case the final region is ‘Safety Good’.

Next, for the pointer value, select the column that you want to show on the dial chart. In our case we select ‘Safety’ and aggregation as ‘Avg’

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, we click on “Create chart”. This action shows the dialog below

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We change the chart title to ‘Average Safety’

NOTE: remove the double quotes in the SQL statement for the group by. This will cause an error.

Click on ‘Fully Apply’

Here is our final Dial Chart

 

 

 

 

 

Next, create a dial chart to show current month value

We will change some conditions on the main Qlet. Right click on the “Name” and select ‘Duplicate’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It creates an exact copy of the qlet table. We change the name to ‘Current Month’

 

 

 

 

 

Right click on the ‘Period’ column and select ‘Create’ -> Create Date Filter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This action shows a dialog as shown below

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First change the operator to ‘Between’

Next select ‘First Day of Month’ for the from and ‘Last Day of Month’ for the To val.

Click on ‘Use This Filter’

This action applies the filter to the Qlet and it shows only currrent month row

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, right click on ‘Current Month’ and select ‘Create Chart’

All of the settings remain the same except the ‘Aggregation’, make sure to select ‘NONE’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once all the three charts are done, we arrange them as below

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Similarly, you may create the charts for “Quality” and “Revenue”

Previous – Excel Dashboard Tutorial – 11

How do you share your Excel Dashboard with users?

Now that you have built the dashboard, you can share the dashboard in multiple ways.

” Create a PDF output of the dashboard and send as email attachment.

Click on the PDF icon on the toolbar as shown below and it will instantly create a PDF output

 

PDF output

 

” Create Static HTML output. Click on the HTML icon on the toolbar. This option creates a static html page that you can put in on the web. Users cannot interact with the dashboard. It is just a snapshot image of the dashboard at the time the output was generated. It does not refresh automatically. You will need to regerate the output again when the data is refreshed.

” Desktop Sharing. You can put the dashboard definition file (icv) on a file share directory and other users can view the dashboard through the Dashboard viewer. You may need separate license for dashboard viewers for desktop.

Go to Menu Create ‘ Publish to web and it will generate a file that you can put it where the dashboard web server is and it will render the output. The look and feel is different with this option

The web version is using a flash charting engine to the desktop Java chart engine.
Details of converting the desktop to web version are not covered in the document. Please refer online at any of our websites for more details

You can download the complete tutorial as PDF
” Web Sharing: In this option, you can publish the dashboard to web and the dashboard is available real time with all the dashboard parameters and refresh actions

Previous – Excel Dashboard Tutorial

Summary

We built the above dashboard completely from scratch.

• We defined Calculations
• We defined date hierarchies
• We built Date Filters
• We built Date Parameters
• We built Bar Charts
• We built Pie Charts
• We cleaned the dashboard layout

Next – Share Excel Dashboard with other Users

Previous – Excel Dashboard Tutorial – 9

Cleanup – Resize and Organize

Give appropriate names to each portlet.
During the chart creation if we did not provide names, now is the time to provide them.
Right click on each title and click on “Edit”

 

Scale down the Size

 

Note, you can drag the corners of each portlet to resize the frames and drag the title name to place them on the canvas

Screen real-estate is very important when designing any dashboard or web application. For better space utilization, we will convert the standard pie to a 3D view

Also, while arranging the objects, keep the most important charts on the top and left area. Put all the detailed portlets at the bottom.

Avoid horizontal scrolling

Remember, do not put any objects on the right side of the scroll bar. Always, keep the scrolling to vertical as it is convienient for viewing.

The above layout will cause for horizontal scrolling and is not a good practice.
Once you do the basic layout of placing the portlets so that they are distinctly visible, it becomes easy to use the resizing options within the tool.

Navigate to Edit ‘ Resize Mode

Once in the resize mode, you can select each object and they are enabled for group resize and placement

Select all the parameters on the top and we will align the top edges with respect to the first one.

As you see, each plet is shown in red with a bar on top indicating it is selected for alignment
One more, thing, you can also turn the Grid mode to see a guide for your alignment and placement

Goto Edit ‘ Show Grid

Note: Once you are done with resize and align with one set of objects, make sure to deselect them before working on the next set of objects

It is best practice to first resize all the objects. All objects on the same horizontal line should have the same height. Select the optimum height of any object on that particular horizontal line and then right click on the title and resize the height of all the selected ones. Then apply the alignment -> Top , deselect the objects and start with the objects in the next horizontal line.

This completes our basic dashboard which is dynamic and extremely informative.
If you need to further customize the look and feel please refer to our online tutorial and reference section
http://www.infocaptor.com/user_help/bi-dashboard-help.htm

Next – Excel Dashboard – Complete Order Management Dashboard

Previous – Excel Dashboard Tutorial – 8

Finish the Dashboard Design and Development

By now, your dashboard is quite chaotic. You have objects all around your dashboard canvas with different sizes. We will start the process of finishing our design.

 

Before proceeding, we save a copy of the dashboard.

Navigate to menu File ‘ Save As

 

Give a name to the file so that you can identify the raw dashboard definition file.

Click on Save.

Next, go to menu File => Close All

Note that there are no dashboards to view.

If you need more backup copies to be created or create different versions of the same dashboard definition, then go to the File Explorer, select the file and type – Ctrl-C, and then Ctrl-V

Now, Click on the File ‘ Open
Select the file “Order Management Analytics.icv”

Note that we are not touching the – Initial Copy file.
Click on Open

Get rid of objects you don’t need
We don’t need the initial table portlet, so we will delete that.

Select the “Name” portlet and then click on the “Scissor’ icon on the toolbar

 

Click “Yes” to confirm.

Note, we created the backup copy of the dashboard so don’t worry if you mess up the dashboard. You can always go back to the original and start again.

Similarly remove all objects that you don’t need it.

Next – Excel Dashboard Tutorial – Arrange objects in sizing and alignment

Previous – Excel Dashboard Tutorial – 7

Create Pie Chart

We will now create a pie chart by product name

 

 

It is nice to know that the revenue distribution is not dominated by a single product.

We can now change the “Category name parameter” to see the product distribution for other category

By Category = Beverages

Summary of steps so far
” Create a foundation table portlet (Qlet)
” Add Calculations and any derived columns
” Add Date hierarchy columns as needed
” Create Date parameters if needed
” Create drop down list of values as parameters
” Create charts using the base Qlet
” Delete the foundation portlet when not needed and you are done with the dashboard design
” Arrange the remaining portlets in desired format.

Once you are done with all the Qlets (query/table portlet) and Glets (graphic portlets), it is advisable to save the dashboard file, copy the file and work on the new file for finishing and polishing the dashboard.

Next – Excel Dashboard Tutorial – 9

Previous – Excel Dashboards – 5

Create Year and Category Parameters

Remember, we have not built any charts yet. It is very important that we build our foundation Qlet and its corresponding parameters so that all of the drop down parameters can be leveraged in the charts.

It definitely helps to plan your dashboard development. Since the dashboard tool is easy to work with, we should still make an attempt to always plan so that we don’t duplicate our effort.

During the development, it may happen that you will get lots of ideas on implementing different ways. I would suggest to save the base dashboard definition once you have frozen all the parameters and Qlets. Before you start building charts, create a copy of the dashboard file as backup.

In our data, we have details about items that are sold on a particular date. We have the unit price, and quantity information. We also have the category for each item that they belong to. So it makes sense to include a parameter for the item category so that we can select only the items belonging to a particular category.

Right click on the “Category Name”, navigate to Create ==> Create Parameter

It creates a new parameter named “Category Name”

 

You may place this anywhere you feel appropriate.

Similarly, right click on the “Or Year” column and create the parameter

 

 

NOTE: Often it does not make sense to have a year drop down and a date range parameter.

Because if the year value and the date ranges fall apart or do not intersect then you will not see any data output. In this tutorial we provided the year and date ranges only for demonstration so if you need only one, do not use the other.

Next – Create Excel Dashboard – 7

Previous Article – Create Excel Dashboards – 4

Add Date Hierarchy Columns

Most of the data, has some form of date information. Now date is very granular information. Very often, to generate trending information, you need to derive year and month columns.

In the dashboard designer, you can easily generate Date hierarchy columns for any kind of reporting.

In our example, we have order date, so we will generate the Year, Quarter, Month, Day , Week and other flavors of the same information for better representation.

Right click on the “Order Date” column and navigate to Create ‘ “Add Year, Quarter, Months column

 

 

Click on “Add” and it will add the following columns to the right of the primary column “Order Date”

 

You may not need all of the date derived columns but it is worth understanding what they stand for.

The derive columns, have a prefix of “Or” which are the first two letters of the primary date column “Order Date”. The remaining part explains the actual part of the date.
1. Year : represents the year component of the date
2. Mth N : represents the numerical month.
3. Mth Disp: represents the month number but padded with zero on the left
4. Mth NN: represents month number and 3 letter month name
5. Yr Mth : represents the year and month number
6. Qtr: represents the quarter number
7. Week : represents the week of year
8. Dy: represents day of year
9. … and so on.

The concept of date hierarchy even though simple to implement is very powerful. Within few minutes you can derive important “Insight” into your data. We will now begin the process of deriving intelligence out of boring data. Now begins the fun part.

Create Date Filter and Parameters

If you work with real transaction application, you already know that the amount of data is huge and the data has some form of date column. This date could be transaction date, invoice date, order date, payment date etc.

One of the dashboard and reporting best practices is to have some form of date filter and/or parameters so users can dynamically choose the date range. This helps in narrowing down the data for analysis.

Let us create a simple date filter.

One of the typical requirement is to see data for “as of today”.
In the dashboard designer it is few click process to implement this.

Right click on the Date column (order date), Navigate to

Create ==> Create Date Filter

 

The detail use of the Date Filter is covered in a separate tutorial. As we have very minimal use of the date filter for the dashboard that we are building we will just touch the basics.

In the date filter, on the left you see the column name and on the drop down you see different options such as below

” First Day of Month
” Last Day of Month
” First Day of Qtr
” Last Day of Qtr
” First Day of Week
” Last Day of Week
” First Day of Year
” Last day of Year

For our purpose we just limited our data to be less than today.

Click on “use this filter” and it will be applied to the Qlet.

One of the best practice is to avoid hard coding of any values in the Query. For e.g, The dashboard designer allows you to build drop down list of values as parameters to the query. We will leverage this option to the fullest so that the dashboard is extremely useful and can respond to data changes.

We will create a From and To Date range parameter

Right click on the “Order Date” column, Navigate to Create ‘ Create Parameter
It instantly creates two Data Parameters

We arrange them and size them appropriately as below

 

Once arranged and formatted, you can type the date or popup the date picker by click on the button on the side

 

Now, right click on the Title and select “Refresh”

 

Change the From and To Date values and refresh, the Qlet will change the data accordingly.

Next – Create Excel Dashboards – 6

Previous step : Excel Dashboards – 2

Create Dashboard and Table portlet

Once connected, it will show you a list of action items to pick from

We will click on “New Blank Dashboard“

In the Dashboard Name, we type in “Order Management Analytics”

Click OK.

It will present you with a table browser showing all the available worksheets as tables

Expand the node to see all the worksheets.

In this example file, we just have one worksheet named “order_data”. Note how, it attaches a $ sign at the end, which indicates this is an Excel Worksheet.

So make sure you do not have any dollar sign when naming the Excel worksheet and no other special characters and no white or blank characters. Replace blank characters with “_” underscore character

Double Click on the “order_data$” node

Click on the “* alias=ord” item at the very top to select all the items

You may change the name of any column or any other property such as sort and group by.

We will leave it as it is and click on the “Create Table” button.

This action creates a Table Portlet (Qlet) in the Dashboard canvas

We will use this Qlet as our basic building block for the following exercise

Next : How to build Excel Dashboards – 4