By Idealware—Your senior staff and board of directors can benefit from the ability to view high level metrics for your organization, but it’s not obvious how to easily pull such a thing together. We'll outline what has worked for other organizations to define the metrics that should be tracked, strategies for compiling data from different systems, and then possibilities for putting it all together into a visual dashboard.
4. What We’ll Cover Today
–What is a Dashboard?
–Seven Steps to Your Own Dashboard
1. Define Who and What It’s For
2. Understand What Your Users Want
3. Map Metrics to Your Needs
4. Choose Your Dashboard Platform
5. Design Charts and Displays
6. Implement and Roll Out
7. Plan to Iterate
–Some Dashboard Case Studies
6. What Data Does A Dashboard Track?
It depends greatly on the
organization, but it could include:
• Operational data
• Program spend and budget
• Program impact
Or all of these things!
7. Operational Data
They can show day-to-day data, like the number of open
cases assigned to each attorney.
LSNTAP, built on Basecamp
8. More Specific Metrics
Some provide more specific, calculated metrics like the average
time that a case is open or the time spent per program.
Atlanta Legal Aid Society, built in LegalServer
9. Program Impact
While it’s difficult, a few have
created dashboards to track
program impact.
If you can collect the right metrics,
this can be a valuable tool —the
ability to see organizational
impact in one view.
Blue Ridge Legal Services, built in Excel
10. What Software Should You Use?
There is, unfortunately, no
magical “dashboard software.”
You might use anything from
Excel to your grants
management system to more
complex reporting tools.
11. Where Do I Start?
Let’s look at the seven steps to dashboard success!
13. Who Will Be the Highest Priority Users?
Who are you designing the dashboard for?
Will there be additional types of users?
14. Is Your Goal to Centralize Key Metrics?
Do you want everyone to be
able to see the same set of
metrics, to help keep
everyone on the same page?
Maybe the board?
Or the public?
15. Or Will Staff Choose Their Metrics?
Customized metrics will help people with their own job…
..but don’t necessarily help get everyone on the same page.
16. Is Data Self-Service A Goal?
Do you want to allow staff to
look up data themselves
rather than requesting it from
your grants team?
17. Define What Success Looks Like
Resist the urge to make
something that’s all
things to all people.
19. Find Out What They Currently Do
Convene staff members and talk about their current processes.
Pay more attention to gaps and workarounds than to what they
say they’d use.
20. Consider The “Magical Dashboard”
Asking people to draw
out the information they’d
like to have can be
useful—often desires are
surprisingly simple.
21. Define What They Really Need
• Simple summary of key data?
• More complex indicators?
• Ability to tailor to their own needs?
• To be able to drill into details?
• To do scenario planning?
24. What Data Will Help You Make Decisions?
Defining the right metrics might
take a conversation—or a two
year strategic process.
25. Where Will The Data Come From?
• Do you have the data?
• How easy will it be to pull it for your dashboard?
• What kind of transformation will it need?
26. Don’t Underestimate This Process
For many organizations,
designing the right metrics—
those that are both useful
and practical—is the hardest
part of a dashboard process.
40. Make the Dashboard Magic Happen
Bring the data together with
your visuals and platform to
let the magic happen!
Obviously, the effort and
process will depend hugely
on what you’re doing.
41. Roll it Out Thoughtfully
Don’t forget about training
and the process of getting
people on board—it
doesn’t matter how great it
is if no one uses it.
47. Atlanta Legal Aid Society
Awarded a TIG in 2012 to develop an Executive Dashboard in
their existing case management system, LegalServer.
48. Atlanta Legal Aid Society
The dynamic reports allow the executive
team to both see a high-level overview
of programs and services, and drill
down to see outcomes for a specific
program or individual.
50. Blue Ridge Legal Services
Static charts and graphs
built in Microsoft Excel,
displaying performance
metrics to compare
individual offices, programs,
and case handlers.
Used for :
• individual performance
reports for staff or offices
• displaying results in case
work and client satisfaction
surveys
51. Blue Ridge Legal Services
Long-term goal is to create a
template file in Excel, allowing staff
to quickly create dashboards from
custom reports or queries.
53. Utah Legal Services
Awarded a TIG in 2010 to develop
dashboards in Kemp’s Case Works to provide
a clearer and more user-friendly version of
their quarterly performance reports.
54. Utah Legal Services
Reports are sent quarterly to advocates, comparing
their work to other staff in similar areas focused on:
• Performance Metrics
• Electronic Time Reports
• Electronic Expense/ FSA Claims