{"id":67071,"date":"2015-03-31T05:53:39","date_gmt":"2015-03-31T05:53:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/product\/uncategorized\/tell-a-story-with-your-map-enabled-bi-dashboard\/"},"modified":"2018-03-26T21:04:54","modified_gmt":"2018-03-26T21:04:54","slug":"tell-a-story-with-your-map-enabled-bi-dashboard","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/arcgis-blog\/products\/\/uncategorized\/tell-a-story-with-your-map-enabled-bi-dashboard","title":{"rendered":"Tell a story with your map-enabled BI dashboard"},"author":5401,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":""},"categories":[],"tags":[23241,23501,23511,25521,23541,24471,23551],"industry":[],"product":[36591],"class_list":["post-67071","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-best-practices","tag-bi","tag-business-intelligence","tag-dashboards","tag-esri-maps-for-ibm-cognos","tag-esri-maps-for-microstrategy","tag-location-analytics","product-apps"],"acf":{"short_description":"Incorporating maps into your BI dashboard can greatly enhance the effectiveness and usability of the dashboard for consumers. But without...","flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"

Incorporating maps into your BI dashboard can greatly enhance the effectiveness and usability of the dashboard for consumers. But without proper up-front planning, you\u2019re likely to create a map-enabled dashboard that\u2019s confusing, misleading, or difficult for consumers to read and use.<\/p>\n

An effective dashboard tells a story, and to do so, your dashboard must have a clear purpose. What message or theme are you trying to convey? What is the target audience? What scope and level of detail are required? What metrics, dashboard components, and interactive functionality will most effectively convey the theme of the dashboard?<\/p>\n

Theme and audience<\/strong><\/p>\n

Before you start designing your dashboard, decide on a theme. What are the main questions you want to answer with the dashboard? Think about what your users need to know and what action they would take once they have this information. What do you want them to remember most? Don\u2019t try to answer too many questions\u2014dashboards are meant to answer a few related and focused questions, typically to communicate where some aspect of performance is being met or not met.<\/p>\n

The theme of your dashboard should be supported by the map. An example of a theme might be: \u201cDeliver operational awareness for the national sales team, including overall sales revenue, year-over-year change, trends over time, and revenue by product mix.\u201d The map helps the dashboard tell the story, allowing users to ask location-based questions that contribute to their understanding of the theme. Your map should make it easy to spot and understand patterns and clearly associate them with other dashboard components.<\/p>\n

As users explore the map, additional information will emerge. For example, a dashboard showing performance metrics by state in the north-eastern United States might have a map that focuses on the top-performing states in the north-eastern sales region, but that also allows users to explore more details such as customer locations and revenue as they zoom into the map.<\/p>\n

\"Top-performing<\/a>\"Top-performing<\/a><\/p>\n

To help you choose a theme for your dashboard, identify your target audience. What do consumers need to know? What decisions do they need to make? What questions do they need answered? What do they already know? How much technical knowledge do they have?<\/p>\n

For example, your audience might want answers to some of these questions:<\/p>\n