A KPI dashboard displays key performance indicators in interactive charts and graphs, allowing for quick, organized review and analysis. Key performance indicators are quantifiable measures of performance over time for specific strategic objectives. Modern KPI dashboards allow any user to easily explore the data behind the KPIs and uncover actionable insights. In this way, a KPI dashboard transforms massive data sets from across an organization into data-driven decisions that can improve your business.
Elevate your KPI dashboard game. Dashboards are essential to modern business—but there’s no single approach for designing the best KPI dashboard template. Across industries and organizations, key performance indicators vary wildly. Implementing a set of time-tested strategic principles can help you tell a compelling story about your business that helps you progress toward your goals.
More resources:Every dashboard is unique—but many fall into one of four categories based on their intended purpose and audience. Each one has a different focus and highlights the KPIs that matter to your business. Whichever type you use, the best dashboard tools allow you to easily drill into the data and get real insights.
A hospital group that serves a large geographic area in Northwest England, UHMB uses data-driven insights to support a desire for better systems.
The Executive KPI dashboard provides UHMB teams with a view of the most current data, allowing them to evaluate progress on key goals and objectives, improve clinical and operational experiences, and develop means to improve management, patient experience, and staff dynamics.
Operational dashboards are a very common type of dashboard. They’re used to monitor the current condition and present information in a simple, easy-to-view format that everyone can understand. These KPI dashboards aren’t designed for interactivity or to demonstrate progress toward a goal, but rather to provide a snapshot of the way things are now.
Based in England, the Avon & Somerset Police Force provides lifesaving services to their community.
The force uses the Operational KPI dashboard as a daily tool to monitor crime, track the location and volume of police reports, and provide a snapshot of incidents teams should be prepared to deal with.
A tactical dashboard is used to track progress toward a goal, whether on a company-wide level or for a particular team or project. Interactivity is key for this type of dashboard, as you want to be able to determine why something is or isn’t going well. They help teams determine if what they’re doing is working—and if they need to make changes.
Celebrus is a software vendor that specializes in customer intelligence. They wanted a simple, uncluttered dashboard to help their business users make faster, better informed decisions.
Celebrus designed their Tactical KPI dashboards to allow users to drill down into trends, discover key insights around the customer journey, and identify new customer targets based on behavior patterns.
An analytical dashboard contains a vast amount of data created and used by analysts to provide support to executives. Analytics dashboards supply a comprehensive overview of business data and middle management is a crucial part of the user group. These dashboards are used to drive decisions and play a key role in the business.
Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) are items purchased by everyday consumers. In such a competitive market, it’s crucial to have an analytical dashboard that illuminates exactly what, where, and when people are spending.
CPG companies use analytics dashboards to forecast market share growth, apply historical data to track trends, and create smart comparisons to track the market against goals.
When you invest the time to create KPI dashboard templates that are visually exciting and relevant, it helps everyone in the business...
When creating a KPI dashboard template, you'll want to be clear about your audience, what they want, and how they’re going to use the information presented to them.
Designing a dashboard is about more than just making something look nice—it’s about using data to tell a story that helps your audience get what they need. Any data-driven dashboard must follow a few key design principles that add clarity and signal intent.
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Key Performance Indicators can be complex, so it’s important to know how to work with them to produce the best results. As you use KPIs in a dashboard, you’ll want to:
Congrats—you’re ready to create a beautiful KPI dashboard! But before you share it with your audience:
After you share your dashboard:
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