The Power of Dashboards in Data Analysis

Enhancing Business Intelligence: Interactive Dashboards vs. Traditional Reports

The word “dashboard” has become commonplace in our work lexicon, but a dashboard is just a fancy term for a report. What makes dashboards more valuable than a standard Excel pivot table, chart, or even a PowerPoint slide is the ability for the user or presenter to interact with the dashboards and, thus, the data.

At WordCom, we have designed dashboards using Microsoft’s Power BI. This allows our clients to review their marketing campaign results or customer data quickly. Our design is intentional for discovering patterns and insights within the results of a marketing campaign or customer data.

One dashboard design that helps achieve this goal utilizes a map-based visualization. Microsoft defines visualization as a display of insights discovered in the data. Specifically, our clients can see their marketing campaign results mapped out within their branch footprints. What is also beneficial with this map-based visualization is the ability to filter or select a particular branch or market, and the map will react by zooming into that area. Also, this visualization enables the user to hover over any point on the map, and a tooltip will display information related to that point on the map.

Simplifying Complex Data: The User-Friendly Dashboards of WordCom

With any reporting mechanism, providing too much information can become overwhelming and confusing to the end-user, which may lead to frustration and lack of use. The dashboards designed here at WordCom keep it simple and organized for our users. For example, on our demographics page, they can jump from one metric to another just by clicking a button, and the entire page adjusts to their selection. This will provide a clearer picture for them to pull insights from the data.

An essential capability of the WordCom dashboards is the range of actions that can be performed with the campaign results or customer data. There’s an unlimited library of functions and expressions that can combine, group, and perform advanced calculations and queries. These advanced calculations and queries can be tailored to each client’s needs. One example of these functions is the time intelligence function, which enables you to manipulate data using periods—including days, months, quarters, and years—and then build and compare calculations over those periods. A more simplified way of saying it is comparing one month’s activity to the previous month’s activity and showing the percentage change over that period.