The Best Ways to Utilize KPI Dashboards

A good investment has to be useful in a range of applications. This versatility makes all the difference between a short-term and long-term investment. KPI dashboards appear as very simple software on the surface, especially compared with the broader aspects of BI programs in general. Although KPI's may be a single feature in a larger program, that feature may offer the most utility in your business. This power comes from the ease of use and versatility of the dashboards.

KPI Dashboards for Various Users

When it comes to utility, it’s important to determine who access your regular BI software and in what ways. For example, if decision makers and managers have access, how do they utilize the software? Perhaps, only a handful of trained employees have access to data requests and typically have to wait more than ten minutes for reports. With KPI's, you can add a new level of efficiency to your regular workflow.

KPI dashboards get a lot of their utility from their ease of use. As mentioned above, if anyone has to wait more than ten minutes for a report, these dashboards are much better options. Employees can boot up their own computers, start up the program, and get the information they need from a KPI dashboard within the same amount of time. If they already have their computers on and their software running, accessing the data they need is a matter of clicking on the active icon. offer simple numbers that require little training in order to understand. It’s a user-friendly system that suits a wide variety of users very well.

KPI Dashboards for Different Functions

The ability to perform a variety of functions is another way that KPI dashboards provide utility. Most business intelligence software offers users the chance to customize their dashboards. The variety of users described above may not be able to set up and customize these dashboards themselves. Still, having IT set up a KPI dashboard once is dramatically less costly than taking the time to generate reports multiple times every month.

It would be very easy to set up unique dashboards for department managers, marketing planners, IT teams, and major decision makers. They could all use the same program, but each KPI dashboard would look different. These KPI's would represent the key numbers for customer feedback in one workstation, and production rates in the next. Given the right features, a single piece of software could function as multiple different programs.

There are very few investments that could offer so many different parts of your business such distinct advantages. Minor investments of time at the beginning of the process could save vital hours, if not days, of work for primary IT teams. New users would also enjoy the benefits of speed and immediate access. The sheer number of potential users, along with the variety of potential functions, offers unprecedented utility. If you no longer need for one part of your business, you can easily use them somewhere else. It’s a great investment that comes packed with immediate and long-term utility for every part of your business.