I got a note from a friend of mine the other day. He wanted to know if I knew of some tools that could help him rapidly design dashboards. I do not know of anything but thought you might.
Here is his note in full. Please comment if you can help him with his question.
"Claudia,
I have been looking for a set of Visio shapes that will allow rapid design of dashboards that are supported by Microsoft, Oracle, BW, etc. Are you aware of where these might be available as opposed to having to create them from scratch. Thanks."
Well, there you have it. I am not aware of what Visio might have so I leave it up to others to expand the knowledge bank. Got any suggestions?
Yours in BI (and dashboard design) Success.
Claudia
Posted March 2, 2006 12:05 PM
Permalink | 7 Comments |
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Dear Friend -
I am not aware of an off the shelf solution for dashboards that involves Visio. The company that I represent does however, have a way of applying value to images and then breathing the life of real time data into those images.
However, the work that you have done in visio is a great first step. Sharp Analytics software allows us to go from whiteboard to production (pending clean data) in less than a week (for a dashboard that is as complete as the ones you can see here).
I would love talk in more detail.
I am not sure why the link did not work, http://www.sharpanalytics.com/bi_solutions/demo.php.
Visio is not generally accepted as a dashboard building tool. I recommend Crystal Xcelsius.
If you're just looking for chart / graph / gauge shapes, Visio has most of those built in. Do a search for "chart" and you'll find a whole slew of stuff. The big thing I saw missing was a dashboard kind of guage. You can find one here:
http://www.mvps.org/visio/Downloads.htm
I'm sure there are plenty of others out there, too.
The really hard part in dashboard design is figuring out with your users just exactly what to show. I've found that the best way to brainstorm is to look at as many dashboard design samples as possible. The best resource for this is to use The Dashboard Spy at http://dashboardspy.wordpress.com
It's a blog that monitors dashboard designs and features tons of sample dashboards. It's updated daily.
OK, getting back to the question, you'll need to start with site mapping and storyboarding before you get to more granular design efforts. This method of using visio for site mapping was just posted: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/the_lazy_ia_s_guide_to_making_sitemaps.
It has links to visio stencils that will help. After you get a site map together, then you can talk about individual controls on the pages.
Don't forget to check out other dashboard designs at http://dashboardspy.wordpress.com
My latest thought on this thread: Here's the latest in the rapid development of dashboards. Use this free Powerpoint-based screen mockup tool located at the dashboard templates page of The Dashboard Spy. It is so simple any business user can use it to quickly mock up a dashboard.