Dashboards and Metric Reporting Using
the NetCharts® Reporting Suite

Dashboards and metric reporting clearly communicate business objectives throughout your organization and allow all users to see the progress toward those goals on a daily basis, which keeps everyone focused and informed. With drilldown enabled, users may drill to the desired level of detail, and personalization options allow users to get the information they need and promotes quicker adoption across the organization.

Top Features & Benefits
	Connect to virtually any data source - Integrate data from databases, spreadsheets, XML, flat files, and more, using point-and-click Named Data Sets (NDS) technology.
	Visually stunning graphics - From the leader in online data visualization, these professional-grade images can be used in print or slide presentations. The NetCharts Designer tool allows nearly unlimited formatiing and configuration control with the ease of a WYSIWYG interface.
	Dynamic Data and Drilldown - Dashboards created with the NetCharts Reporting Suite update automatically with no need to resynchronize or repopulate your spreadsheet. Charts and tables can easily be configured to support drilldown to detailed data or other dashboard presentations.
	Application Server Publishing - No need to email results, and no per-user pricing!

Visual Mining’s NetCharts Reporting Suite provides developers and business analysts with a flexible, powerful platform to build compelling visual dashboards, for considerably less time and money than traditional dashboarding tools.

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Resources for more information on Dashboards and Reporting

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• A Dashboard Data Methdology
  Visual Mining staff | March 22 2006
  

  Dashboards are only as good as the data that supports them. No matter which graphical or textual visualizations are used, drilldown capabilities exposed, or personalization features available, the success and long-term end-user adoption of a dashboard is dependant on the accuracy, quality, and flexibility of the underlying data. It is critical that dashboard projects consider and arrange data properly for maximum utility.

  This paper describes a simple, systematic approach for understanding and configuring data sources for use in both small and mid-sized dashboard projects. It does not require months of data consultants or the implementation of complex multidimensional OLAP tools – virtually any contemporary database will be able to support the ROLAP-like methodology used here. Our approach also addresses the need for changing data requirements without refactoring the dashboard or underlying data structures. It works best using non-aggregated data.

• TDWI's Best Practices: Deploying Dashboards and Scorecards
  By Wayne Eckerson | July 2006

  This special report, compiled by The Data Warehouse Institute (TDWI), provides valuable guidelines when planning and deploying dashboard and scorecard projects. The report includes hundreds of survey responses that show you the best practices used in enterprises throughout the world.

  Download this report to learn:

  • The three types of dashboards and which ones are right for your needs;
  • How best to utilize dashboards and scorecards;
  • Trends and challenges in implementing dashboards;
  • Best practices for developing effective metrics.

   

• Dashboard or Scorecard: Which Should You Use?
  By Wayne Eckerson | January 2005

  Quietly and without much fanfare, a majority of organizations in the past year or two have adopted dashboards and scorecards as their preferred way of viewing performance information.

  In many ways, dashboards and scorecards represent the culmination of business intelligence. A dashboard or scorecard interface finally makes it easy for a majority of users to quickly find, analyze, and explore the information they need to perform their jobs on a daily basis. To borrow a term from the telecommunications industry, dashboards and scorecards represent the "last mile" of wiring that connects users to the data warehousing and analytical infrastructure that organizations have created during the past decade.

• Performance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring and Managing Your Business (on-demand webinar - requires registration - free)
  
  Performance dashboards are the new face of business intelligence. They provide a layered interface that conforms to the way users work rather than forcing them to conform to the way BI tools work. Like peeling an onion, users move through successive layers of information in a carefully guided and systematic manner. When aligned with strategic objectives and plans, performance dashboards empower users to work more efficiently and effectively towards a common set of goals. This webinar will show how performance dashboards blend the once distinct disciplines of business intelligence and performance management into a powerful agent of organizational change.
  

  Attendees Will Learn:

  1. The difference between operational, tactical, and strategic dashboards
  2. How to launch, grow, and sustain a performance dashboard project
  3. How to create effective KPIs and design effective dashboard screens
  4. How to integrate and link performance dashboards throughout an enterprise
     
• What Are Performance Dashboards?
  by Wayne Eckerson | November 2005
  

  Summary: Performance dashboards are only as effective as the organization they seek to measure. Organizations without central control or coordination will deploy a haphazard jumble of nonintegrated performance dashboards.

• Dashboards: The Key to Breaking the Dependency on BI
  By Steve Ricketts | November 29, 2005
  

  Somewhere between the information in information technology and the intelligence in business intelligence, customers found themselves lost in a land of increasing complexity and information overload. The promise of easy access to enterprise information has not lived up to everyone's expectations - but there is still hope.

• Corporate Dashboards: Real ROI - or just the "Next-Big-Software-Thing"?
  Visual Mining staff | March 2006
  
  Every 18 months or so, information technology industry analysts and vendors busily engage in hyping the “Next-Big-Software-Thing™” (N.B.S.T.) for managing businesses. Analysts write all kinds of articles trumpeting the benefits; vendors come to market with new products; the technical press writes thousands of pages on the topic. Tradeshows with knowledgeable speakers, outrageous displays and clever tchotchkies complete the picture of an up and coming technology that’s avoided only at your business’s peril.

  Today’s N.B.S.T. is Corporate Dashboards. Are they just more of the same recycled Business Intelligence (BI) hype or do they produce real value? How much do they cost? Are they worth the money?

• How to Jump-Start Your Performance Management Project
  by Jonathan D. Becher | November 2005
  

  Summary: This article focuses on how to avoid performance management overload through an incremental approach with concrete steps to quick start the program and show results in a few weeks.

  When the 2005 year-in-review lists come out in January 2006, you shouldn't be surprised if performance management is near the top of almost everyone's list for what was hot. It seems that everywhere you turn, people are talking about performance management: vendors, consultants, press, public sector and commercial organizations alike. Amidst the buzz, however, one troubling trend is beginning to emerge. Many performance management projects have languished, burdened by unrealistic expectations, delayed schedules and intangible benefits. Performance management is in danger of becoming like data warehousing of the early '90s and customer relationship management (CRM) of the late '90s; something everyone does but from which few reap much value.

• Dashboards: Another Look at Data Visualization
  Visual Mining staff | December 2004
  
  Executive Summary: Data visualization applications have traditionally shown poor ROI but are finally starting to show real value in dashboard applications. The key is closely integrating business goals and processes with the right technology.