Excel® 2007 Dashboards & Reports For Dummies®

Chapter 15. Ten Questions to Ask Before Distributing Your Dashboard

You started this book with two chapters that discuss a few design and data modeling principles that, together, make up what could be considered dashboarding's best practices. Before you send out your finished product, it's valuable to check your reporting mechanism against some of the principles covered in this book. Use the ten questions in this chapter as a kind of checklist to ensure your dashboard follows the best practices covered in this book.

Does My Dashboard Present the Right Information?

Look at the information you're presenting and determine if it meets the purpose of the dashboard you identified during the requirements-gathering stage. Don't be timid about clarifying the purpose of the dashboard with the core users. Avoid building the dashboard in a vacuum. Allow a few test users to see iterations as you develop. This way, clear communication stays open, and you won't go too far in the wrong direction.

Does Everything on My Dashboard Have a Purpose?

Take an honest look at how much information on your dashboard doesn't support its main purpose. In order to keep your dashboard as valuable as possible, you don't want to dilute it with nice-to-know data that's interesting, but not actionable. Remember, if the data doesn't support the core purpose of the dashboard, leave it out. Nothing says you have to fill every bit of white space on the page.

Does My Dashboard Prominently Display the Key Message?

Every dashboard ...