How to Build

Useful KPI
Dashboards
 Strategic decision making is built on accurate
information.

When you have precise data in an easily

digestible format, you can make actionable
decisions that impact business performance.
This is especially critical when you are using
data from multiple sources like an ERP, CRM,
warehousing, or manufacturing systems.

In this whitepaper, we are going to show you

that through a set of tools, technologies,
and best practices, analytics and business
intelligence solutions can help you start tracking
performance measures and make better sense
of your data now.

How to Build Useful KPI Dashboards 2

 What Performance Measures Should I Track?
It’s impossible to make a qualified decision about the direction of your business without complete visibility
into your data. Many companies have a basic understanding of what reports they need to see every month
from a financial and operations perspective, but there are other layers of performance measures that should
be assessed, tracked, and analyzed to stay on target to reach your operational business goals.

To effectively manage productivity and profitability, you need to make strategic and tactical metrics work for
you.

There are two types of performance measures that form the base of every analytics program: Key
Performance Indicators (KPIs) and metrics. Although you might have heard people use the terms “KPI” and
“metric” interchangeably, they are different quantifiable measurements that can impact how you set your
overall strategy.

Metrics track the status of a specific business KPIs measure performance toward achieving
process. They are tactical, showing the exact your strategic goals or objectives. The key word
performance in an area of your business. Metrics, here is strategic, as KPIs show the big picture of
like IT spend by business unit or average new deal your operations. KPIs, such as net profit margin or
size, are monitored regularly. cost of goods sold, are measured on a monthly,
quarterly, or yearly basis.

When you bring both measurements together, you can start to evaluate your progress toward achieving a
business goal. For example, a universal KPI used by most companies is Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). CLV
can be broken down by individual customers, regions, products, or salespeople and used to make decisions
about sales, marketing, product development, and customer support. Metrics that go into CLV include
customer churn rate, average customer lifetime value, average gross margin, etc.

Understanding what metrics support your KPIs will help you quickly respond to fluctuations and get you
closer to achieving your monthly, quarterly, and yearly business goals faster—as long as you have the right
systems in place. Managing KPIs and metrics with Excel is time-consuming and frankly, not going to get you
anywhere. Which leads us to another key distinction between KPIs and metrics: the tools you need to build
and manage them effectively.

How to Build Useful KPI Dashboards 3

 How to Start Tracking Your KPIs and Metrics
There are a few steps required to become a performance-driven culture fueled by data and insight. We are
going to walk you through how to identify, create, and visualize your KPIs and metrics in a dashboard.

1 - Identify the Right KPIs for Your Business

Before jumping into dashboard development, you need to set measurable, quantifiable business goals. Your
business or departmental goals are the foundation on which you will base your performance metrics and
report against. Once you have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve this quarter or year, you
can start to identify what corresponding KPIs and metrics will help you meet those objectives.

One of the biggest challenges with developing goals and KPIs is making them relatable and realistic. That is
why it’s important to include your employees and managers in these bigger discussions. When employees
are engaged and understand how their work relates to the company’s overarching goals, they will be more
committed to using and optimizing analytics.

To get started, we recommend you keep it simple. Choose two or three priority goals and identify no more
than three KPIs per goal. The goals you choose can help guide your organization’s strategic planning,
performance measurement, or resource allocation—as long as the KPIs are actionable and show how you
plan to get there.

Here are a couple of examples:

GOAL: To close ten deals at an average of GOAL: To improve customer satisfaction scores
$1,500 MRR over the next six months, ultimately by reducing live chat waiting time by one
increasing revenue by 20 percent. minute this quarter.

KPIs: KPIs:
1. Pipeline that will close in X days 1. Average reply time
2. Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) 2. Resolution rate
3. Number of deals closed 3. Customer satisfaction score (CSAT)

How to Build Useful KPI Dashboards 4

 2 - Start Thinking About KPI Dashboards

Now that you have established your goals for the year and the corresponding KPIs to track, you can
start planning out your dashboards. KPI dashboards are used to provide a quick snapshot of how you
are performing and progressing toward those goals. With data visualizations, you can start to make
comparisons, see trends over time, and see relationships between functional areas of the company.

KPI dashboards can be divided into three categories:

1. Strategic Dashboards
Track the health of a company and overall business performance. Used by executives and managers
to help identify potential opportunities.

Example: VIEW DASHBOARD

2. Operational Dashboards
Monitors business processes that frequently change. Data updates regularly and is often viewed by a
manager multiple times a day to observe progress toward a goal.

Example: VIEW DASHBOARD

3. Analytical Dashboards
Used to process and analyze large volumes of data to identify trends and predict outcomes. Typically
developed and designed by business analysts.

Example: VIEW DASHBOARD

How to Build Useful KPI Dashboards 5

 Examining individual and cross-organizational KPIs and metrics is much easier with a well-designed KPI
dashboard. Every dashboard is unique because it has to fit a specific need of an employee or role and match
the culture of an organization. In order to make your dashboards effective, they need to:
•
Be easy to read and understand
•
Be easy to update
•
Have the ability to drill down into key information
•
Be visually appealing and allow for decisions to be made at a glance (less is more!)

It will also help if your KPI dashboards are customized to fit a specific role. A sales manager doesn’t need to
see inventory data to evaluate how their sales team is performing, do they? Take a look at two dashboards
below; one is designed for Sales and the other is designed for Finance.

Sales by Salesperson

Accounts Payable

Whether you’re looking at sales progress or production goals, it’s all about
understanding your key fields and what information you need to capture in order
to best do your job. Just remember to continuously evaluate, tweak, and use
them consistently.

How to Build Useful KPI Dashboards 6

 3 - Build Your KPI Dashboards with a Business dashboard by selecting queries and applying
Intelligence Solution calculations within the BI tool itself. Most BI
solutions come with a variety of pre-built
Once you have your KPIs and metrics defined dashboard and chart options. In Microsoft
for your business and a clear understanding of Dynamics ERP solutions, for example, KPIs can be
how to design your specific KPI dashboards, a set up through Power BI or another third-party
business intelligence (BI) solution can help do the BI tool that uses a live connection to the data
heavy lifting for you. source. No matter what BI solution you choose to
implement, managers and staff should be able
BI solutions work by gathering the most up-to- to get the answers to their questions in real-time
date information across your entire operations and take action based on accurate data.
into one central location and transforming it into
an easy-to-digest format that helps drive instant
decision-making and process adjustments.
Through intuitive, streamlined reporting and
simple dashboards, BI can be used by everyone
from your admin team to your executive team,
giving you the tools you need to improve
budgeting, support forecasting, and make better
financial decisions.

To put the right information into the right

hands, you can easily design and create a KPI

How to Choose the Right BI Solution

for Your Data Demands
Learn why BI is essential for growth, how to avoid BI solution implementation
failure, and what to look for in a BI solution. To assist with your software selection
process and help you find a solution that fits your current ERP system and IT
infrastructure, we have also created a framework for evaluating third-party
BI solutions.

READ MORE >

How to Build Useful KPI Dashboards 7

 10 Best Practices to Building Effective KPI Dashboards

1 Clearly define your business goals and objectives.

2 Work with your entire team to align operational goals with KPIs and metrics.

3 Practice by choosing your priority goals and defining three KPIs that will help measure your progress.

Lay out your dashboards by role or department to narrow down KPIs and get buy-in from other team
4
members.

5 Use pre-built dashboards to help you get started designing your KPI dashboards.

6 Get creative with data visualizations—experiment with pie charts, pivot tables, etc.

Take a step back and make sure your KPI dashboards align with your business goals, are easy to read,
7
and are actionable.

Test your dashboards to make sure they are pulling accurate, up-to-date information from all your
data sources.
8
NOTE: Make sure your BI solution has this capability!

9 Assign control to a manager to build, update, and govern specific dashboards.

Measure progress regularly. Are these dashboards working or can you make them easier to read? Your
10
KPIs should evolve as your business grows and changes.

How to Build Useful KPI Dashboards 8

 Simplify KPI Dashboard Design
with BI Software

BI solutions work by gathering the most up-to-date information across your entire
operations and transforming it into an easy-to-digest format that helps drive instant
decision-making and process adjustments. Many popular BI solutions currently on
the market create beautiful visuals, but the back end is too complicated to leverage
effectively. At insightsoftware, we offer BI solutions with a robust, intuitive, and flexible
data management platform to help you make better financial decisions.

If you’re ready to instantly view accurate, organized data inside of Excel, on the web,
through mobile devices, in Power BI, and more, get in touch with the BI and data
management experts at insightsoftware. We can help you make sense of your data
by building an environment that facilitates data integrity and total visibility at the
same time.

Start Making Strategic Decisions

Based on Accurate Data

REQUEST A DEMO >

Navigating the Complexity of JD Edwards Tables for Financial Reporting 9

About insightsoftware

insightsoftware is a leading provider of financial reporting and enterprise performance

management software. We enable the Office of the CFO to connect to and make sense
of their enterprise data in real time so they can proactively drive greater financial
intelligence across their organization, which is how best-in-class finance teams
operate. Over 25,000 organizations worldwide rely on insightsoftware’s portfolio of best-
in-class reporting, analytics, budgeting, forecasting, consolidation, and tax solutions
to provide them with increased productivity, visibility, accuracy, and compliance. Visit
insightsoftware.com for more information.

8529 Six Forks Road Ste. 400

Raleigh, NC 27615

www.insightsoftware.com

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