Topic
Dashboard types
Dashboards are sorted by the decision they support, not by the library they were built with. A board reviewing a quarter, a dispatcher watching a shift and an analyst chasing a cause need three different things: time horizon, level of detail, refresh rate.
Choosing the type first settles most of the design arguments that follow. It decides how much history is on screen, how fast the data has to arrive, and what a reader is expected to do when a number moves.
Start hereDashboard Types: Sorted by How Fast the Reader Must ActFour dashboard types, separated by how long the reader has to respond, and which one a given audience actually needs.
Dashboard types
Strategic, tactical, operational and analytical.
- TermDashboardA dashboard is a visual interface that displays key metrics and KPIs from multiple data sources in a single, easy-to-understand view for real-time monitoring and decision-making.
- ArticleStrategic Dashboard Design: Objectives, Evidence, and DecisionsDesign strategic dashboards around explicit objectives, review cadence, valid references, decision rights, and a hierarchy that survives every layout.
- ArticleTactical Dashboards: Bridging Strategy and OperationsNot every business goal fits neatly into 'strategic long-term' or 'operational real-time.' Here's how tactical dashboards track the middle layer.
- ArticleOperational Dashboards: From Signal to ResponseAn operational dashboard should turn a current signal into owned, authorized, and verifiable work, not merely refresh a wall of KPIs.
- ArticleAnalytical Dashboard Techniques: From Questions to EvidenceDesign analytical dashboards as a governed loop from a decision question through comparison, drill-through, evidence, action, and saved context.
Real time
Real-time dashboards and when they are needed.
By the audience it reports to
The same topic, by industry.
- Sales and CRMPipeline and CRM reporting inside your product
- Operations and Supply ChainOperations and supply chain analytics, with per-number freshness
- FinanceFinance analytics, reconciled to the ledger
- Retail and EcommerceRetail and ecommerce analytics, with comparable store windows
- HealthcareHealthcare analytics, with source reconciliation and access by care relationship
- MarketingMarketing analytics for agencies, white-label per client
- HRHR analytics, scoped by reporting line