BusinessObjects™ XI Release 2 for Dummies®

Chapter 15. A Different Kind of Dashboard

In This Chapter

• Understanding the value of dashboards

• Creating a dashboard

• Viewing dashboards

• Making a dashboard your home page

If you need to analyze specific data on a particular subject, the usual approach is to search for a document whose name you already know in your list of available documents in InfoView, open the document, and browse through it for the data you’re looking for. Alternatively, you could build this data into the report itself, or you could create a new report from the universe you’re using. In any case, you already know what information you’re looking for.

It’s also quite possible, however, that what you need is an at-a-glance macro view of what’s going on in your business. That’s where a dashboard comes in handy.

A dashboard is a portal made up of pages and tabs that organizes data according to the information it contains. This portal can be secured in such a way as to customize what users can see depending on their role in the company. A CEO, for instance, might have access to the whole dashboard, while a sales manager would see sales data (perhaps filtered geographically) but would not have access to worldwide HR information.

Each page in a dashboard contains analytical tools and interactive charts, which display and highlight key performance indicators — such as trends over time, comparison with goals, strategy maps, alerts, and such. They also contain links to reports so you can drill down on information, always going ...