Dashboard Considerations

The following questions should be considered and discussed before creating dashboards and dashboard groups:
  • What is the goal of the dashboard? Understanding the goal of the dashboard helps the designer select the metrics, chart type, and queries for each widget on the dashboard.
  • Who will be viewing the dashboard or dashboard group? The dashboard audience determines the type of information on the dashboard. For example, the chief information security officer (CISO) and executive board may want to see only trends and the organizations with the most events. Department managers may want to see only information about their employees and department assets.
  • How many clicks are needed to get to the information? Having to click several charts to get to the information is not recommended. It is better to have charts displayed at a higher level.
  • How will granular data be displayed? Dashboards that have a high-level view with the drill-down capability to display granular data are recommended. Best practice is to use table widgets to display granular data.
  • Will a details table include an action toolbar so that users act directly on items in the table?
  • Will there be an overview dashboard that summarizes the other dashboards in the group? If the answer is "yes," then the overview dashboard should be the default dashboard in the group.
  • What type of query will be used for the dashboard widget? An MDX query returns data faster than SQL query because the data is an indexed view.
  • What type of chart presents the information best? For example, a pie chart is useful to show the portions of the total, and a line chart is useful for showing trends.
  • Will the displayed widgets be the same size? The size of widgets can be increased to make the displayed data easier to read, or display complex tables. The following image shows an example of one dashboard display with three equal-size bar charts, and a table beneath them. The table is as wide as the three bar charts combined, and twice their height.