Dashboard Research Project Your name | Teacher’s name | School Contract type total retail sales 2010-2012

Introduction •

The purpose behind this presentation is to show the positive and negative aspects to the dashboards my partner and I have created. We are trying to find out the usefulness behind each of our Dashboards and see if there useful for convening our data. We will be interviewing Paula Delvalle and Mike Waitley, both business professionals, over the Dashboards to get feedback for there ability to convey knowledge. The end hope is to have positive feedback from both the dashboard projects in our interviews to show that they where well put together and able to show the information easily.

Questions Question 1- How useful/ relevant were the graphs in relation to the raw data?

Question 2 - How easily did you understand the target chart?

Question 3 - Did any graph seem too hard to understand?

Question 4 - Which of the graphs seemed the most visually appealing?

Question 5 - -Did the slicers help you visualize what the data did over the years?

Question 6 - Out of the excel tools that we used, which one was the most useful?

Question 7 - What do you believe was the main element that we should have used but didn’t?

Question 8 - Which graph or sheet seemed irrelevant to the dashboard?

Question 9 - Did the colors help visualize the objective of the graphs?

Question 10 - If you were my employer how would this data analysis compare with your standard?

Literature cited - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/excel-functions-bycategory-HP005204211.aspx - http://www.excel-easy.com/

$55,515,285

$67,873,456

TOTAL RETAIL SALES

Subscription total sales Other total sales License total sales

$120,586,991

$-

$100,000,000

$200,000,000

Results •

Through our rigorous testing and questioning of the comprehensive graphs we had put together we found that in the interviews the answers we received shared many similarities. The fact that all graphs used seemed to give much usefulness to the displaying of information in comparison to just the raw data was a point that both interviewees made very apparent. In the interview with mike we had many points over how clustering of graphs and columns within them made the information harder to process and separate out. In much the same regard Paula could understand all the material but had to spend more time on the deciphering of our graphs in analysis over the temperature charts, due to the more conjoined and clustered look they had. Now the bar graphs that carried a slicer as a part of it proved, in both interview cases, to be a sensation. The ability for a simple interface of selecting a word on the side of the graph to highlight a section on the graph and get a better feel for it made both interviewees happier with there interface with our dashboards. On the first slicer Paula reviewed she gave us feed back saying “I need to use this with my own customers more often” and Mike concluded that “if more of the dashboard had tools to separate out data in a similar fashion then it would have been easier to understand”. When covering the future trend line graphs the consensus from both parties was that the trend lines gave a good understanding of growth and would be a very useful tool. Paula raved that the trend lines graphs we had made not only were easy to understand and helpful with good imagery but as well as something she uses regularly. Mike also commented that the trend line graph on the first example where more clear and made it understandable for the viewer. All in all we believe that our dashboards where not only effective with our interviewees but helpful to them to get an understanding of the presentations even college students are able to create. We believe there feed back is helpful and will be useful in the future.

Methods • Steps • 1. Brainstorm potential candidates and selected them • 2. Created 15 questions which we narrowed down to 10 to best ask the interviewees • 3. Called and scheduled interviews for both candidates • 4. Sent each candidate a perspective dashboard which we created • 5. Proceeded to have interview and take notes over what was said • 6. Took the interviews in a relaxed setting with both lasting around 30 min • 7. Concluded interview and summarized the data to put into project

Conclusion • In conclusion, we found that the need to simplify data is an extremely important tool to employees. We also found that the dashboard is a perfect way to simplify this data and is accurate with what happens in the workplace. Both of our interviewees could relate with our charts and simplified data. This data was also consistent with something that they would see in the office. To be competitive in the workplace we found that one must become familiar with the uses of data simplification.

Further information How useful is excel in a business setting?

How long does it take one to become fluent in the basics uses of excel?

• We would hope to find that excel has many practical uses in the business environment on a day to day basis.

• We would hope to assume that, with training, it would take one business quarter to pick up on all basic uses of excel.

Acknowledgments Paula Delvalle – Ask for reference # Mike Waitley – Ask for reference # Dr. Angela Mattia