OBIEE The final skills, Creating great dashboards.

Most project we spend 70% on getting the data (ETL), 20% on creating the repository and 10% percent on creating the dashboards. Regarding step 1 and 2 most of us have enough skills do them successfully. The final step, creating the dashboard, is something we often take to light hearted.

Let's make a bold statement here: 60% percent of the dashboards we create, within six months, aren't used in the way we intended them or even worse aren't used at all.

Why? Most of them don't communicate to user in the most effective way. The user can't find what he is looking for at glance. Either we tend to overload him with data or present it in a non effective way.

If you want to master these last skills you should really read :

Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data by Stephen Few. (http://www.amazon.com/Information-Dashboard-Design-Effective-Communication/dp/0596100167)

The current version of OBIEE has the (dis)advantage that it doesn't have many charting options. This means we have put in some extra toughts in the way we put the data on the dashboards.

In comming period I will post some examples how the findings of Stephen Few can be implemented within OBIEE.

Till Next Time