Dashboards, Reporting & Business Intelligence

Databases are often under lock-n-key of the IT Department and not possible to connect directly due to security reasons. So if you plan to build a Dashboard prototype or a Dashboard Mockup it makes sense to export the data to Excel and build it.

Modular Dashboard Design
Lot of the online tutorials and Dashboard e-books teach you to build dashboard in Excel file. They provide you with templates, you fill in the information and build the dashboard using Excel charting techniques.

If you use Excel Templates for your real dashboarding needs then you may end up with any of the below problems.

” Big Bulky and bloated excel files
” Undocumented Macros
” Zero verification on the data authencity
” No way to refresh the dashboard (lost productivity)

“Best Practise for Dashboard Design”
Modular Design – Keep Data and Presentation Separate
How? – Use Excel only for storing your data. Nothing more.

Do not build any visualization in the same place where your Data resides.

Benefits of this approach
” Your dashboard or presenation layer is independent – Dashboard definition is stored separately
” Increased productivity – When you have fresh data just refresh the dashboard, no redevelopment needed
” No Messy Excel Macros or coding knowledge required – Just drag and drop tables and visually build Tables, Charts, Speedometer, Gauges, Dials, Thermometers and more charts
” Simplified Distribution and Presentation – You can Export the Dashboard to PDF or HTML and just send them as attachments
” Save Time – Just build the dashboard presentation layer only once and automate the refreshes.

Lets begin Building Dashboard

Data Preparation

Export your transaction data to Excel file by running a report or requesting your IT department.

There are certain rules to be followed when you get the data in Excel files.

Here is a sample Excel dump of Order Entry data.
The first row is always treated as the column names.

If you inherit an Excel file with pivots and charts all over the places then try to copy just the raw data in another worksheet in the same file or create another file. If it is not possible to keep the first row as the column names then you could define “named ranges”. In the dashboard designer it is possible to access the data using Cell ranges but then future updates to the Excel file could break the dashboard, for e.g if the data goes beyond the Cell range.

NOTE: Make sure column names do not have any funky characters. Just keep it to simple alpha-numeric column names.

While the need for business intelligence is widely recognized, the use and implementation thereof can often be confusing, or misunderstood.

Most business intelligence initiatives start with the purpose of delivering the right information at the right time. This gives the correct priority to timeliness and accuracy of information, but does not indicate where said information should go. Though a real time BI software solution may deliver up to date information via dashboards or traditional reports, it may not be enough for employees who barely have time to log into their laptops when off visiting major customers. For such people, this information is not “real time” in the truest sense unless it is also readily accessible at the right place.

Another myth about business intelligence is that it provides analytical reporting while core transactional applications supply operational information. In actuality, a standard business intelligence software solution must meet both informational needs equally. Because information from both of these areas satisfies a diverse set of requirements, the most important ingredient for successful business intelligence implementation is getting the various parts of the organization properly aligned. It is critical that business analysts, in the early stages of implementation, interview all key stakeholders and document and reconcile critical business requirements from operational experts, analytical experts, line management, and staff management at multiple levels of the organization. Failure to understand internal customer requirements is one of the top reasons for failed business intelligence implementations.

Once requirements have been elicited and rationalized with each other, the proposed solution must be vetted with all stakeholders to ensure correctness and, even more importantly, drive buy-in so that all stakeholders will support and work towards a successful implementation rather than ignoring or, worse, actively resisting it. Once the initial requirements phase is complete, the next important step in an implementation is architecting a proposed solution and then piloting the solution on a small scale with key users to reduce any risks and prove out the implementation. During this phase, training plans can be created. A strategy for rolling out the implementation incrementally can be initiated and kinks in the implementation can be worked out.

Post-implementation, it is advisable to follow up with users to reinforce training and ensure that the full benefits of the business intelligence software solution are being realized. Any deferred features or capabilities can be addressed in the form of a small post-implementation revision project which takes an evolutionary approach towards continually improving the solution

To understand the benefits of self-service business intelligence, you first need to know what self-service BI is. It is, as it sounds, a way for business users to easily access the data that they need and create the necessary reports by themselves without having to involve the IT personnel or power users at their company. In essence, it is user-friendly business intelligence that any business user can operate.

Who Can Use Self-Service BI?

The whole point of self-service business intelligence is that anyone who needs to use it can use it. While BI tools are normally used by management or the key decision-makers in a company, it is now also being used by project managers to improve day-to-day performance and by real-time users in an operational capacity. Self-service BI doesn’t cut out the need for your IT personnel: they are still very necessary in creating applications and dealing with the more complicated business intelligence issues. But self-service BI does offer the benefit of streamlining the reporting process and allowing business users to handle much of it themselves.

Taking Advantage of the Benefits

Because self-service BI users don’t have to rely on your IT team to gain access to data and create reports, the decision-making process in your company can become that much faster. When a business user sees a problem that requires data to analyze the problem and strategize for a solution, that business user no longer has to first approach the IT department to access the data and build the necessary report. Removing that step in the process brings your business user to a solution much faster and improves the performance of your company on a much more immediate basis. Another benefit of self-service business intelligence: it frees up your IT personnel to work once again on the larger picture, rather than getting bogged down in the reporting needs of business users.

The Tools You Need for Self-Service Business Intelligence

How can you get your hands on self-service BI tools? Find a vendor that utilizes rich internet applications in its BI software. This allows for a user-friendly interface, web-based tools and reports, and reporting formats that will look and feel familiar to the user.

Business intelligence can be complex, but more and more, vendors are creating tools that are more user-friendly and allow business users to work directly with those tools. Take a look at self-service BI and streamline the decision-making process in your company.

There’s no escaping it: these are tough economic times. Everywhere you go you hear about how bad the economy is doing, whether it’s news about the stock market, another major company in trouble, or the credit crisis. Making your business successful in times like these may sound like a daunting task, but with the help of business intelligence software, your company can still thrive.

The success of your business in any economy relies on a lot more than some data and statistics, but what you do with that data can greatly improve your company. The performance of your company is only as good as the performance of your projects, so having the data to analyze the performance and management of your projects is essential. Business intelligence software allows you to track the performance of your projects and make decisions for your company that will improve both the day-to-day tasks and the overall organization of the company. With the right information, you can make your projects and your company more efficient, focused, and successful, regardless of the economy.

For some companies, being able to see the relationship between differing sets of data is just as important as the data itself. As business intelligence software continues to improve, the ability to analyze those data relationships is also improving. Using business intelligence to understand the complete picture, rather than just the separate pieces, is another tool to stay competitive in a tough economy and keep your business on the path to success.

All of that data isn’t very useful if the software interface isn’t very functional. Many business intelligence software companies are now offering Rich Internet Applications to improve that functionality. Features of such software often include web dashboards, interactive web reports, and the ability to automatically generate spreadsheets that everyone is familiar with.

Don’t let a volatile economy affect the success of your company. Business intelligence software is a key element to guiding your business through the coming months and years, improving performance, and keeping your company focused.

Finding the focus of your business and monitoring your success in that particular area is the key to success in today’s diverse market. You can monitor how well your company is maintaining strategic focus by defining your Key Performance Indicators and investing in a business intelligence software program that will help you keep track of your progress. Your Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs, can show you which areas you’re executing well and which need improvement.

Choosing Your KPIs

Depending on your business’ focus, your KPIs will be different. Once you narrow down which KPIs are important to your business you can set up your business intelligence software to start collecting the necessary data you need to keep track of your strategy.

· Cost-focused Businesses – The KPIs for cost-focused businesses include cost measurement, cycle time, ability to conform to market standards, quantity, and quality.

· Product-focused Businesses – You’ll be looking at new products in the pipeline, research and development, time to market, and product customization when you select your KPIs for a product-focused business.

· Customer-focused Businesses – Your KPIs will be knowledge of customers, environmental appearance, complaint management, employee empathy, product expertise, and responsiveness in a customer-focused business.

A cost-focused business might benefit from having some knowledge of its customers, but it is not an important KPI for the company overall, while the opposite is true for a customer-focused business. You can mix and match these KPIs if you find it necessary, but most of the time this categorization will hold true.

Setting Up Your Business Intelligence Software

Armed with KPIs specific to your business, you can set up your business intelligence software to collect the data that will show whether or not you are on track with your company strategy. For cost-focused businesses, you will need to collect data that shows cost for the entire process, from materials to labor. Product-focused businesses will need to collect data that shows how the company is moving forward with new products and customer-focused businesses will have to collect more information on customer satisfaction. This will require the business intelligence program to mine different data sources, depending on the information required.

It may even be useful for you to determine your KPIs before you purchase your business intelligence software. That way, you’ll be able to purchase the best package for your data tracking requirements knowing what you need to collect.

One of the new features available in the upcoming release of InfoCaptor is the ability to auto-refresh multiple dashboards and automatically cycle through each dashboard.

You can set the cycle rate by clicking on the options button, click on the “Auto Refresh & Cycle Each Dashboard” checkbox and select the refresh rate at the desired number of seconds.

Issues: Currently if the refresh rate is set very low, Java is not able to trigger the Garbage collection and hence it creeps memory and eventually the application becomes un-responsive.

Ideally if the refresh rate is set to 2-3 minutes then it should run fine on a good machine. Ocassionally you may need to restart InfoCaptor if it starts slowing down.

Along with this we are also working on launching multiple dashboards at once using a common config file. This should go handy with the Auto-refresh and cycling option.

You can test drive the auto-cycle option using this test version

What are the benefits of this feature?

We already have had the auto-refresh feature, and auto-cycling of dashboards during refresh is a natural extension of the feature. We have numerous users and clients asked for the cycling feature so that a DBA or Sysadmin person can setup a dedicated desktop just to monitor the metrics. If the metrics are corporate goal specific then they could also be broadcasted over a TV or a huge display for employee awareness.

Tags: dashboard on tv, tv dashboards, auto refresh dashboards, auto cycle dashboards

Quickbooks is a very popular “micro ERP” application and dominates the Small Business Market. One of the benefits of using Quickbooks for my own business is the simplicity and ease of use. You can run a report and from the report you can drill down straight to the transactions. I learnt a lot of things using quickbooks just by running reports, finding the reported amount in the wrong account, I would then drill down straight to the transactions, change the account, and when I refresh the report …boom.. I can see my changes. Instant productivity!

In one of the surveys it was mentioned, most of the new Small business’s fail not because of their execution or anything else but because the owner never realized where the problem is. To keep track of your business, you need to actively monitor who is your top customer, what is your open account receivables, what is your inventory etc.

Sure, all of this information is available right in Quickbooks but the problem is you need to run seperate reports to get all these informations. So lets say it typically takes 5 mins to run a typical report and if the business owner where to run say 10 different reports on a daily basis that itself accounts to a precious 50 mins of his/her time.

This is a big pain and the most painful part is that this is a tough part to comprehend, understand and implement for a small business owner.

My company produces this Dashboard Designer for small businesses but never realized the fact or the thought never occurred until one of the clients asked us the question “Can you create Dashboards on top of Quickbooks?”

Then the journey began…some research…and after few technical hickups we finally managed to create some sample dashboards on top of Quickbooks with Real time data.

The below screenshot is for Expense Analisys Dashbaord

The above dashboard is very dynamic. You can change the period type to Year,Quarter, Month, week or Days. The first chart shows the Expense trending by period, instantly tells you how you are managing your expenses.

The 2nd chart tells the Average Expense/Day which is an interesting KPI and the remaining two charts show the expense by payee (vendor) and by Account.

Now take a look at the below Sales Dashboard

here is the chart listing
“Sales by Period” (Year, Quarter, Month, Week, Days)
“Average Sales/Day”
“Top 10 Customers”
“Top 10 Products”
“COGS by Period”

Dashboards for Small Business – Solution and Price perfect