What are the different types of dashboards?

What are the different types of dashboards?

To explain, let us compare dashboard types to building types

As we know, a great way to transform complicated data sets into comprehensible visual storytelling machines is to design a dashboard. Yet, with data sets being generated from different divisions and for different purposes, the dashboards those data sets sit in need to effectively serve those different purposes. It’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. 

So to design a great dashboard, we need to first understand its purpose. From here, we can then decide on the right type of dashboard to effectively communicate the data – all while aligning to our purpose. 

That’s why there are so many well-established dashboard types. To align with the common purposes of data, we have different types of dashboards that track performance, visualize a system, or predict future instances, and so on.

Each type has their place, but it can be hard to get your head around exactly what makes each business dashboard unique just from a name such as ‘Systems dashboard’. 

What does that actually entail and how can we better understand its function to know if it will align with the purpose for our data? What about the other dashboards?

In data visualization, applying a metaphor is a great way to simplify complex information. So let’s have a bit of fun with that and explain eight of the common dashboards ‘metaphorically’ – each as the operations of different buildings.

Flip the cards over to see

Volumetric Dashboard

Guests in, guests out, rooms available, staff on shift. Volumetric dashboards measure volume. These dashboards are ‘reporting dashboards’ as they simply report on the data recorded. Just like a hotel tracks the core variables that will impact the hotel’s success, a volumetric dashboard also tracks the raw variables that are typically used to later calculate success metrics (turnover rates, room availability and overall profit, for example). A volumetric dashboard acts as a data source of the metrics that appear in monitoring or KPI dashboards. We see the data for what it is and also get a good chance to uncover trends in the data, for example by displaying volumes over time.

Modelling Dashboard

How may I understand a modelling dashboard as a sports stadium I hear you ask? Well it’s all about seeking a goal, just like a sports team. And if we picture looking down on a sports game with a birds-eye-view, we can picture each player contributing to the overall outcome. With a modelling dashboard, we get this birds-eye-view over our strategic plans and can test a scenario/game-play to see how it will affect the overall goal. Quickly identify what’s lacking and what’s exceeding to know where to adjust accordingly.

Monitoring Dashboard

Is the bank secure and all systems working? Is the money count correct? Are ATMs online? For a bank, it is necessary to know the answer to all of these questions immediately - without scrolling through tables of data. And monitoring dashboard (or ‘health’ dashboard) just does that. It uses simple visuals such as dials and traffic lights (red = bad, amber = some issues, green = good) to provide a snapshot of what’s working correctly and what needs attention - fast. either ensuring that all systems are in place and firing correctly, or, if they’re not! These dashboards are designed for speedy communication. If something is wrong, the viewer can quickly see what and investigate further.

Predictive Dashboard

You may think the most innovative and success generating dashboard would be represented better as a fancy skyscraper and not a grungy workshop. What you may have forgotten however, is that quite a few of the world’s most successful and highest valued companies began in a garage/workshop. This is where it all began, where we workshop our big ideas and hone in on what they could become in future. We look at the key factors of our idea and estimate their values to calculate a data-driven, educated guess of future returns.

Systems Dashboard

Is the retail store successful? Profits are one thing but is the customer experience right? Is it sustainable? Retail success is determined by a number of factors - or systems. Like if the staff are working effectively, if marketing is on-target, if the store layout is assisting in sales, does the brand have the right message? These are all touch points to a customer and form part of a wider system. By visualizing these components into a network, we can see our business divisions as a whole (and as a customer may see them) so we can better understand if the system is successfully working towards our business strategy. We can see which cogs are working together and what areas may be letting the rest of the system down.

Scenario Builder Dashboard

Think of a scenario dashboard as a school. In school, you select your subjects to determine a pathway that will, hopefully, align to your goal education/career. You get your exam results back that will determine your final score and eligibility for the next options available to you.
There are so many factors that can affect the outcome.
If we visualized this, we’d have an interactive that allows us to input these factors to then see what that means for us at the end. This is exactly how a scenario builder dashboard works. Inputs calculate outputs so we can quickly understand the choices to make, not to make and where it will leave us.

Optimization Dashboard

A casino’s business model is a measure of risk and opportunity. An optimization dashboard is a method of clearly visualizing how much opportunity is available from risk. Know where you’re able to increase risk and therefore your opportunity. Effort allocation is another example of how you can use an optimization dashboard. Know where you can reduce effort whilst maintaining business quality to increase your profit. Set up your own 80/20 rule dashboard by clearly seeing how you can generate more profit with less effort. The 80/20 rule is the principle of aiming towards 20% of effort generates 80% of an outcome or profit. Have your own mini digital casino!

AI & Approval Dashboard

These days, for a manufacturing plant to be profitable, a series of smart machines are set up to complete tasks and make quick decisions autonomously, therefore reducing human labor costs. Artificial intelligence and Approval dashboards follow the same systems automation model using digital technology. Rather than producing digital products like a manufacturing plant would, they will produce business decisions. Explainable Artificial intelligence (XAI) is used to analyze heavy datasets to present you with business opportunities and explain why and how they were chosen. All you need to do then is approve or deny actioning the opportunity presented.
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