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‘Dashing Dashboards’
Learn how to go about creating graphical information dashboards for your FileMaker-centric solution. Once the exclusive purview of large corporations, the last few years interactive data visualization systems have become known and affordable to small and midsize organizations. The term Business Intelligence (BI) has come into widespread use only in the last 10 years; this class distills the current body of BI knowledge. We'll describe the technical and business processes you'll need to follow to implement visual dashboards, scorecards, and other decision support systems that monitor selected key performance indicators (KPIs).
Best for...
- In-house developers* responding to management's requests
- Independent developers* wishing to provide additional functionality
- Managers* of developers of information visualization systems
*Attendees should be comfortable with editing FileMaker Pro layouts, creating calculation formulas, and relating table occurrences. 'Ace of Charts' workshop or webinar series as a prerequisite is highly recommended.
Course Length & Price
1 day (9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.); $495
Note that enrollment is limited by class size, so register early to
reserve your seat.
Schedule of Upcoming Classes
Classroom training is currently on hiatus. Please call us at 800.946.5433 about on-site custom training.
Classroom Locations
For location details, please view our directions page.
Background
Fortune 500 corporations have been increasing their investment in Business Intelligence tools every year for the last decade†—about how long the term has been in widespread use. In every corporate interest survey on business analytics the last 3 years, Business Intelligence improvement is the top stated priority.†† In 2008 alone, the amount spent on BI tools was almost $8 billion worldwide.†††
- † Forrester Research Inc., Cambridge, MA
- †† Gartner, Inc., Stamford, CT
- ††† International Data Group (IDC) Framingham, CT
Luckily for those of us who use FileMaker Pro, the price of admission is much lower.
Who wouldn't want a graphical display that shows metrics and key performance indicators about how effectively their department or organization is operating? The conventional options to date have been limited: navigating complex spreadsheets or wading through reports or relying on other peoples' analyses. Dashboards have become the de facto face of business performance management (BPM) applications and are increasingly used in all types of BI analytics. But for every dashboard that effectively displays pertinent and actionable business information, there are two that produce nothing more than (hopefully) pretty graphics.
This 'Dashing Dashboards' class provides a revealing look into the current thinking and best practices around information visualization. We recognize our debt to the works of Alan Cooper, Jakob Nielsen, Donald Norman, Edward Tufte, Stephen Few, Howard Wainer, The Data Warehousing Institute, various CHI (computer-human interaction) groups, and other pioneers of datavis, usability, interface design, and business intelligence.
You'll learn about designing effective information display and user interaction capabilities appropriate for your audience. Apply the best information design every time using the "three threes"—a convenient memory hook representing the distinctions between systems that:
• monitor, analyze or manage performance metrics, for
• operations, tactical or strategic purposes, using
• transactional, multidimensional or graphical data layers.
Topics Covered
- Your Current Environment: assessing factors for success
- Dashboard Design Dogma: Simplicity, Usability, Efficacy, Interactivity
- Information Architecture Insight: how people perceive
- Focus on the Data: clean, normalized, usable, reliable
- Focus on the User: the right information in the right style to the right person
- Focus on the Purpose: serving the big picture by making sure the pieces fit
- Development Methods: tools, techniques, and templates
- Deployment Realities: caveats and provisos to anticipate
- Completion: tips to aid transition and closure
Instructors
Our instructors are practicing consultants who bring valuable real-world experience and best practices to the classes they teach.
