Bringing it all together - Business Intelligence in Microsoft SharePoint 2013 - page 310

Dashboards can be constructed from many different types of content: charts, icons showing status
(usually referred to as key performance indicators [KPIs]), key numbers and statistics, fully interactive
reports, tables, or just about any other visualization that shows how well an organization is tracking
toward its goals.

You can use all the products discussed in this topic to create meaningful views. The previous chap-
ters have provided a good overview of when to use the individual products and how to get started
with them. This chapter focuses on what the end user sees. It does this by first walking through some
straightforward examples that show how to gather insights created using each product. It then com-
bines those insights onto a single dashboard page so that end users can consume the information
easily.

Making dashboards useful
Although it's not within the scope of this chapter to provide all best practices for creating mean-
ingful dashboards, we encourage you to be aware of ways to enhance the end-user experience
by reading more. For example, in his article “The Pathetic State of Dashboards” ( http://marksmith.
ventanaresearch.com/2012/08/21/the-pathetic-state-of-dashboards/ ), Mark Smith gives the following
guidance:

In your dashboard, state who your audience is, what they should understand and interpret
from the chart, and describe the chart in the best way possible.

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Try to align the charts to the geographic area of focus, or to the product line of responsibility,
or to management KPIs to make them more usable. Provide better role-based dashboards that
are generated based on the individual's level of responsibility and the business context.

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Remember to use the tools to add annotations and show analysts how to add data interpretations
and explanation. Some of the tools to do this include the following:

To annotate a Power View chart, simply click the Text Box icon on the ribbon and a small box
appears which you can move around on the report.

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In PowerPivot and SQL Server Data Tools, you can add a description to a column and also to a
table so that when a user's mouse hovers over the table and available dimensions, the descrip-
tion shows in the client tools of either Excel or Power View.

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Figure 10-1 shows the shortcut menu that appears when you right-click the column, which includes
the option for adding a description.