Professional Microsoft® SharePoint® Server 2007 Reporting with SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services

Chapter 12. Using Gauges in SharePoint Dashboards

Dashboards have been a very important part of and will continue to be among the most important features of any application. Earlier in this book, you learned about dashboards and how to make them perform better in SharePoint. In this chapter, you will examine another aspect of dashboards: the visualization techniques of aggregated data.

The word dashboard gets thrown out there a lot in almost any conversation about accessing information. It has become the buzz word for accessing information quickly in today's IT world. Similar to car dashboards, dashboards in the IT world allow you to get information quickly. You can think of a dashboard as the visual representation of data that allows the end user to interpret data within seconds to make fast and accurate business decisions.

How do you visually represent rows and rows of data that will allow end users to make fast business decisions? You probably know the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words." The same idea applies here as well. Can you think of a way to represent the data in an image? An image that can quickly tell you what you need to know? You guessed it; gauges can help you display aggregated data in such a way that the end user can immediately get key points of the data in split seconds.

Gauges are a new addition to the SQL Reporting Services family and are one of the most important graphical data regions that allow you to create visually advanced digital dashboards. ...