Dashboard Screenshots published on June 26, 2006. Thanks to you Dashboard Spies out there with these great tips, the quality of the dashboards we are studying together just keep getting better and better. When certain enterprise dashboards get submitted to the Dashboard Spy dashboard screenshot collection, I know right away that it's a big winner. You know that a business dashboard sample is worth returning to repeatedly for study when the following characteristics are evident: a working demo is available online, there's a clear understanding of the underlying business process, the user interface is professionally designed (with interesting visual solutions used to solve the puzzle of how to visually impart the business intelligence contained in the data to the business user), and interesting technologies are used (in this case a Flash dashboard).
Here is a truly exciting enterprise dashboard that focuses on the sales pipeline. It's from visual-io.com and available to try out as a Business Week Interactive Graphic. There is a nice write up in this BW article, Picturing a Better Business.
Take a look at this dashboard screenshot. There are several interesting things going on. The size, color and positioning of the dots represent the sales pipeline KPIs. The Sales Pipeline Viewer lets you track the progress of each sales executive's potential deals through the sales cycle - from qualification to close. The visual aspects of each dot (representing each potential deal) represent certain facts about the deal. In this screenshot, the size of the dot gives the priority, the color of the dot shows the closing probability and the height of the dot relative to the box it sits in shows the expected revenue. The background is important too. There is the concept of a "heat map" - the more deals in any box, the darker its background. This lets the manager instantly comprehend who is "hot" and who is not (always a challenge in a sales management situation).
Tag: Flash dashboard, Heat map dashboard, KPI dashboards, pipeline dashboard, sales pipeline
Homework: Lots to study here. Let this sample dashboard inspire you to learn the underlying disciplines. If you need to brush up on visual design and User Interface issues, this is a great summary for IT and business-side project members - The Elements of Graphic Design: Space, Unity, Page Architecture, and Type. If you need an understanding of the sales process and how to measure it, take a look at these books on measuring sales performance.
So what or who is The Dashboard Spy? As his about page states, The Dashboard Spy is just a guy interested in the design of enterprise dashboards. He could not find any executive dashboard design source books (or even screenshots of real business dashboards) and so set about creating his own. Finally convinced to post his extensive collection of dashboard screenshots online, he was amazed to find how popular it has become. If you have a nice screenshot of a digital dashboard, balanced scorecard, or any business intelligence graphic to share, please send an email to info _at_ dashboardspy.com. Also check out The Dashboard Spy's favorite books.
Keep up on the latest products and services for digital dashboards. A wide knowledge of the landscape is critical when it comes to the technology and vendor selection phase of your executive dashboard project.
