What Are the Best Practices for a Strong KPI Dashboard?

The first step is to understand why dashboard reporting is useful. Choosing the appropriate KPIs to make your dashboard effective is the next step. Although this may differ depending on the department and the general objectives of your business or customer, there are certain universal trends.

Quality is preferred than quantity for dashboard reporting that is effective. You only have one screen to use as a canvas when using a dashboard. Anyone looking at the screen ought to be able to take in the important information swiftly and without difficulty. Overcrowding your dashboard with useless gauges or graphs muddles the message and might make it difficult to determine what is most important.

Prioritize the appropriate KPIs for your dashboard report. Pick the ones that most effectively represent the tale of your data, to be more precise.

• What KPIs are most important to your bottom line?
• What would the recipient of the report like to see?

Data is undoubtedly essential to many company choices and initiatives nowadays since business is so data-obsessed. Less is more, but it's simple to get hooked to data and believe that it all matters, particularly when you're attempting to demonstrate your worth to customers. Your dashboard reporting will be more effective if you concentrate on only a few key KPIs.

KPIs should function as a north star and be in line with the overall business objectives. Reporting on such KPIs not only brings everyone in the organization together but also aids in guiding a business toward success. Although each team has its own objectives, everyone's ultimate purpose is to see the company flourish, and KPIs are a clear method to bring everyone together.

Similar results may be achieved for your customers by using these reports. It might be quite beneficial to streamline their tasks and their capacity to explain to their leadership how your service is assisting them in achieving their objectives.

In general, all organizations want to assess how well they are doing with regard to finances, clients, sales, marketing, operations, and internal teams. With this knowledge, you can expect your dashboard reports to have a balanced range of KPIs from those business areas.

“Flexible product with great training and support. The product has been very useful for quickly creating dashboards and data views. Support and training has always been available to us and quick to respond. - George R, Information Technology Specialist at Sonepar USA

Best techniques for managing dashboards

Here are 8 recommended practices to follow no matter what kind of dashboard reports you're creating in order to remain efficient, effective, and well-organized:

1. Ensure that your data is relevant

Who is watching your dashboard and getting your dashboard report? Only those metrics should be shown for those recipients. Additionally, avoid include any data that could look out of place or unnecessary if you group your dashboards by recipient, team, or subject.

2. Use strategic metrics

Choose carefully (quality over quantity) and make sure the data you're monitoring support your success plan. Look for and utilize information that has a strong impact on company choices. You'll probably wish to report on service level agreement (SLA) KPIs for your MSP's customers. You'll probably want to report on team or organizational objectives for your team. Make it successful for both you and your clients.

3. Choose measurable metrics

Aware of SMART objectives? SMART objectives are clear, measurable, achievable, pertinent, and timely. You may successfully compare your performance to the standards you've established by setting SMART objectives, allowing you to determine if you're on track in an objective manner. While both qualitative and quantitative measures should be taken into account, it is more crucial to keep in mind that if something cannot be measured, it cannot be managed.

Learn about the top 10 features of embedded business intelligence.

4. Clean out your dashboards

Stay arranged for your own benefit. A crowded dashboard may reduce your productivity just as a messy workstation might. Your receivers are probably experiencing the same anxiousness you do if glancing at your dashboards. Choose the fewest number of metrics necessary to fully communicate your tale, and you should be OK.

5. Track information that can help you

Data is fantastic and strong, but it has its limits. What counts most is what you decide to do with that information. Pay attention to facts that might affect your recruiting practices, business operations, SLAs, yearly targets, and other factors. Ask yourself whether it's worth monitoring if you have information as an FYI but are unable to use it. Making data-driven choices is the aim of business, not merely data collection.

6. Try the quiz

Take a brief look at your dashboard reporting template after it is set up to see what information you can get from it in those few minutes. Are you using an understandable visual representation of your data? Are you use graphics that convey the idea simply and swiftly, such as pie charts, bar graphs, gauges, and colors? Limit your use of text and numbers, and if you can, use images.

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7. Form a lovely grid using your stats

People are drawn to clean lines that evoke serenity and harmony, as well as order and symmetry. Put your dashboards in this order. You may alter and resize your buckets using various dashboard reporting tools to create a dashboard that suits your preferences. To make your dashboard report easier to understand, group relevant metrics together (for example, tickets closed next to tickets opened).

8. Use dashboard filters

You may apply dashboard filters to your reports using the dashboard reporting tool Inetsoft. You can save a ton of time by doing this. For instance, a service desk manager can create a dashboard reporting template and a dashboard filter that only returns data specific to that person (so, Rick's dashboard, Alex's dashboard, Sam's dashboard, etc.) if they want to send reports to each individual technician that are specific to their projects. In Inetsoft, all you have to do is turn on the dashboard filter for the person you're searching for.