Web Analytics and KPI Dashboard Design
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are rates, ratios, averages or percentages that convey your important business information. They are never raw numbers. If you need more advice on selecting the right KPIs for your business look no further than The Big Book of Key Performance Indicators by Eric T. Peterson
Most business collect KPIs in weekly or monthly scorecards. Often pulled together manually from multiple data sources such as web analytics, internal customer registration data, market research and sometimes even voice of customer information. And usually in the form of excel spreadsheets.
This strategy is not scaleable or an efficient use of your analyst resource so you will eventually need to consider some form of dash board automation.
A quick search of Google will reveal numerous dashboard and business information automation products. Here are just some of the products available.
Microsoft PerformancePoint Server 2007
PerformancePoint Server 2007 integrates directly with SQL Server 2007 and is packed with advanced charting and reporting functionality. However its pricey at $20,000 per server license and $195 per user license.
Active Dashboards from a company called Dynistics. Active Dashboards provide real-time visual representations of critical information to help your business users understand your data. Active Dashboards will display within standard Internet browsers and can be easily integrated with existing company intranets, software applications and databases including Microsoft Access and SQL Server 2007. Your key business and operational data can be consolidated within easy to navigate screen layouts.
Starting at around £10,000 Active dashboards is a more affordable solution which offers a variety of charting options and has a relatively easy to use admin interface. Although charting objects can only connect to a single data source so integration a multiple data sources can be problematic.
Probably a better option for Small to Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs)
For reading
The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward R. Tufte
Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data by Stephen Few