Dashboard Evaluation
What are the Characteristics of a 'Best In Class' Enterprise Dashboard?

There are a variety of dashboard products on the market, with a variety of features to consider for a dashboard deployment. A successful dashboard deployment heavily depends on the features within its supporting software. The software features to consider may be divided into the following major categories:

1. End-user experience
2. User management
3. Drill-down
4. Reporting
5. Data connectivity
6. Visualization
7. Collaboration
8. System requirements

The following section describes in detail what may be expected of the software features in each of the previously outlined categories:

End-user Experience

The dashboard software must provide a user-friendly and intuitive interface for all levels of users. The user base within organizations would vary widely in their level of computer savvy and in their software learning temperament. Therefore, a dashboard software program must be extremely intuitive. Some of the key characteristics in this area would include the following:

• Intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) Web-based Performance
• Web-bases
• Performance

Intuitive Graphical User Interface (GUI)
The intuitive GUI, should display visual elements such as icons, and right click windows.

This dashboard image was provided by iDashboards.

Web based
The dashboard must be accessible through the Web (either within an intranet or extranet) by authorized users accessing through any of the leading Web browsers (e.g., Microsoft's Internet Explorer or Netscape).

Performance
Dashboard performance refers to the user experience in terms of the response time required for loading a dashboard. It is important to assess the anticipated level of peak traffic for the planned deployment in order to establish a comparative benchmark.