Enterprise Dashboard Mashups
The recent post on Dashboards By Example on creating WebSphere Portal Dashboard Mashups using Google Gadgets triggered a few discussions on whether or not the public APIs (Google Maps, etc) consumed by mashup dashboards and applicaitons will really be embraced by Enterprise IT. The hesitation expressed concerned the lack of ownership and control of the data.
For those of you that didn’t see the post, I basically ran through some of the impact that Web 2.0 has had on enterprise dashboards. In particular, I discussed how the availability of APIs from Amazon, Google, Yahoo, etc has allowed a surge of Dashboard Mashups - or dashboards that consume both data and behavior from many difference sources. Think of it as web services and SOA come true in its most user-centric way.
There was no doubt among the Dashboard Spy readership that the user experience will benefit, but some dashboarders with a traditional IT mindset seemed a little “scared” of the fact that their applications would be exposing both data and behavior that they did not own.
I point out the very informative InfoWorld article from July 28, 2006 called Enterprise Mashups: Web 2.0 Style Integration at the Browser Isn’t Just for Consumer Apps Anymore and Businesses Are Starting to Take Notice.
I took the liberty of “borrowing” a couple of key graphics from the article (Once a Dashboard Spy, always a Dashboard Spy, I suppose!).
First, let’s have a look at what they call “The beautiful simplicity of mashups”.
Here is a listing of what they identified as enterprise mashup best practices:
You’ll have to read the article to get the bulk of their message, but here are a couple of snippets:
If you are concerned about the risks, read this.
Managing sources and services
The end result may be attractive, but the relative ease with which mashups can be created carries a certain degree of inherent risk. Typically, little more than JavaScript skills are required, and toolkits that ease the development process such as Tibco General Interface Builder and Backbase are proliferating. “That’s why you’d better have a way for IT management and control,” advises Joe Kraus, CEO of JotSpot, which hosts wikis for business users.
ZapThink’s Bloomberg agrees. “The last thing a manager wants is for employees to assemble composite applications willy-nilly, with no controls in place or visibility by management. That’s an accident waiting to happen.”
If you are a big mashup cheerleader, as I am, you’ll want to focus on this:
SOA made sexy
With the widespread adoption of Web standards, “information access has become that much easier,” says Dan Gisolfi, an IBM IT architect who’s evangelizing mashups to enterprise customers. “Not only does it use the Web 2.0 tools, but it brings together disparate services and behaviors.”
Newer, more complex technologies from the SOA and Web services worlds — such as SOAP, WSDL, and REST (Representational State Transfer) — can also be part of mashups, Gisolfi argues. In a sense, mashups are the simplest form of SOA-based application. “Mashups fit very nicely around the concept of a service-oriented enterprise,” concurs Shane Pearson, vice president of marketing at BEA Systems.
Or as Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at consultancy ZapThink, puts it: “They’re the sexy part of SOA.”
“Look around. You probably already have some mashups in place,” even if you don’t use that label, says BEA’s Pearson.
Tags: Enterprise Dashboards and Enterprise Mashups, Web 2.0 Dashboard Design, Business Intelligence Reporting
Couldn’t agree with you more.
Business Intelligence 2.0 is the future.
Dale
http://www.sisense.com
“Business Intelligence for Everybody”
Hello
I am looking for someone to partner with my company in designing our next generation dashboard and metrics web page. In our industry, there are a number of key indicators that are used to indicate how well we are performing for our customers. Our dashboard is the central communication point for telling our story to our customers. It is also used by our employees, management, sales, safety, H/R, etc. Our dashboard is vital to our company as it delivers information to many audiences.
I am looking for someone with an expertise in dashboard and web page design who can take our Dashboard to the next level. We are looking for a dashboard that will not only display metrics, but will allow a certain level of interaction. It is our desire that this interactive quality will allow content to be updated as necessary and make the metrics more meaningful to both customers and employees. (For example, we display employee turnover rate. However, at present, we have no means of communicating what we are doing about employee turnover if the rate is high.) I need someone with the expertise to bring dashboard metric together with user input content to better communicate our story to our customers and employees . It should also allow for SBM corporate to update customers with important issues via training, articles, best practice, etc.
What we really looking for is something over the top visually. We have our basic 10 data points (give or take, depending on the client). Those are:
1. Cost Savings – we break this into 3 types – cost initiatives, cost savings, and cost avoidances.
2. Audits – showing our overall averages
3. Customer Satisfaction – ratings as given to us by our key customer counterparts
4. Complaints – number and possibly what type
5. Compliments – same as above
6. Turnover – and showing that ours is significantly lower than the rest of the industry
7. Safety (often we use the tag line “Safety Begins with Me” relating to SBM) – showing the focus on safety.
8. Work Requests – volume and completion on time.
9. Diversion – shows how much trash we divert from landfills
10. Billing – our general breakdown of service cost.
The big thing is how we show this data in a way that’s very engaging. As our safety chart comes up, can we make the grid show something safety related? In our environment, that’s safety glasses, gloves, etc – and maybe some marketing-type text about SBM being focused on safety, with that little “Safety Begins with Me” thing… just a thought. Then through some cool visual change, transition on to turnover – and show the industry average, and how we’re way below it – what our goal is, and even how the client site compares to other client sites SBM maintains. Next may be recycling diversion rate, and really show how much never makes it to landfill, and where it goes. Maybe some marketing text that goes with it… I’m not quite sure what that looks like – but finding a way to make everything visually to get your attention and draw you in.
As stated earlier, we are a very data orients. An example of creative charting is the Mini Cooper web-site – some graph on there apparently stacks mini coopers as the bar graph. Another site talks about how many students come through, so they showed pictures of school busses in the background. That type of connection… Basically this dashboard is almost like a storyboard you’d throw on a kiosk screen or something – and it’d start playing as you come into the home/landing page, or have a way to start playing.
The biggest themes were around 3D and flash-style animation. We are intrigued by things you can do with Adobe Flex – the 3DWall (http://flashloaded.com/flashcomponents/3dwall/) or (http://www.flashloaded.com/flashcomponents/3denvironment/example4.html) – and some of the visual things on the Flex site: http://flex.org/showcase/
Of course, it’s up to whoever is designing these things to figure out what you should or shouldn’t use to keep it looking good and keep the visual aspect… but the big thing is a way to really tell our story through our data while keeping it visually enticing and engaging.
I am not looking to re-invent the wheel. I am hoping you, or one of your partners has already explored this area and has some ideas and concepts to propose. This is a large opportunity for the right partner. This will require a lot of innovation, passion, and creativity. We’ll give the rest of the site a facelift to match, but our main goal is get this landing page concept together with a comp/storyboard to start with. Our customers and prospective customers are the primary audience to start with.
Attached is our current Summary/Dashboard page. As you can see in the attachment, there are a number of pages, each with multiple tabs to be designed.
As I said, we are looking for a passionate innovative partner. If you know of a partner, I would like to discuss this opportunity with your ASAP. We are on a short timeline.
Thank you
John Buffington
CIO
SBM Site Services, LLC
Corporate
o (916) 565.3637
c (916) 949.9398
[...] and a digital dashboard is no exception. We have studied the growing acceptance by corporations of enterprise mashup dashboards, in which content is assembled from shared APIs made available from third parties. The Best Places [...]
[...] have looked at the concept of enterprise dashboards as mashups. Many business intelligence gurus are forecasting mashups as a huge trend for dashboards in [...]
What is the goal of these dashboards? I am seeing a lot of “this is what it should look like” and very little (if any) “this is what it’s for.”
It makes a big difference whether you are managing or controlling or selling or marketing. Where’s the beef?