What is a Business Intelligence Dashboard? Top Software Options to Help You Get the Most Out of Your Data
If you’ve ever poured over several different company reports, you know that learning the things you want from the data can be challenging. There are sales reports, marketing reports, website analytics, and more, and putting all those together into meaningful and actionable intel isn’t always easy.
This has spurred the development of the business intelligence dashboard, which is designed to help visualize data from several sources in one place. You’ll often hear them referred to as BI (for business intelligence) and they’re helping businesses take all the data collected each day in the course of business and make sense of it.
How can the ability to analyze data help your company?
Organizations analyzing big data report a 10% reduction in costs and 8% increase in revenues on average. (BARC)
As part of our software development consulting, Ion Technologies helps small businesses take advantage of all that technology offers. One important piece of that puzzle is being able to turn data into action, and to do that you need a powerful business intelligence tool that can bring everything together into comprehensive reporting.
We’re going to go over the basics of business intelligence dashboards and their key benefits to companies, then we’ll look at a few out there and what they have to offer your business.
What Are the Benefits of Business Intelligence (BI) Dashboards?
BI dashboards are a major leap ahead from spreadsheet charting. They help managers visualize data in new ways while also having the ability to correlate multiple key performance indicators (KPIs) that intersect.
Having instant & live access to view any number of performance data attached to your operations can help identify areas for improvement and positive things that can be drilled down into.
Benefits that businesses using BI dashboards report are:
- Better business decisions
- Improved data quality
- Improved customer satisfaction
- Reduced costs
- Increased revenue
- Faster reporting & analysis
- More accurate reporting
- Improved operational efficiency
- Increased competitive advantage
Top Business Intelligence Dashboard to Consider
Here are a few of the top business intelligence dashboards out there that you may want to consider for making the most out of your data. The Ion Technologies Team can set up and customize any of these to capture and display the exact information you need to make productive business decisions.
Microsoft Power BI
From a giant in the office productivity software world comes the powerful data visualization tool, Power BI. Microsoft’s business intelligence dashboard promises to deliver stunning visuals and insights that allow fast and informed decisions.
Power BI can be used alone, and is also part of the Microsoft Power platform which includes:
- PowerApps: build apps in “hours, not months”
- Power BI: unlock insights to drive your business
- Microsoft Flow: powerful workflow automations
Power BI Features:
- Connect directly to your data either on premises or in the cloud
- Real-time, streaming data
- Create custom data visuals and choose from over 100 templates
- Ask questions in natural language, and predictive visualizations appear as you type
- Use Quick Insights to find predictive patterns, trends, and associations buried in your data
- It’s integrated with Cortana in Windows 10
- Integrates with existing Microsoft solutions
- Security features for role-based security and data protection
Power BI Pricing:
Microsoft offers a free 60-day trial to allow you to get familiar with Power BI Pro before you buy. They have three options to choose from:
- Power BI Desktop: Free
- Power BI Pro: $9.99 per user per month
- Power BI Premium: Capacity pricing, per node per month (one P1 node is $4,995/month)
Geckoboard
Geckoboard was founded in London in 2010, The company refers to their BI application as a TV dashboard to ensure your metrics are in the front of your mind. They note the ease of use as one of their big advantages.
Their four-step process is:
- Connect
- Select
- Assemble
- Display
Geckoboard Features:
- Pull in metrics from 60+ code-free integrations
- Broadcast live business metrics in minutes
- Powerful spreadsheet integration
- Flexible datasets API
- Clean, easy-to-understand visualizations
- Optimized for your office wall
- Customize to match your brand
- Invite colleagues to build and edit dashboards
Geckoboard Pricing:
They offer a free 30-day trial to allow you try out the application, and pricing options are:
- Starter: 1 dashboard, 1 user for $25 per month
- Growth: 5 dashboards, unlimited users for $149 per month
- Company: Unlimited users and dashboards for $599 per month
Yellowfin
Yellowfin was founded in Australia in 2003 with a goal of making analytical tools better and more comprehensive. They offer a full suite of analytics products which provide the ability to:
- Build AI-powered dashboards
- Author compelling data stories
- Receive automated signals
- Prepare data for analysis
- Analyze data for insights
Yellowfin Features:
- Simple to build dashboards
- AI powered for faster insights
- Ask a question and get a data-based answer
- Trusted, governed and secure
- Flexible design
- Data storytelling package included free
- Share insights with your team faster
- On premises or cloud-based
Yellowfin Pricing:
They offer a free 30-day trial to give them a try. Packages offered are:
- Yellowfin Data Prep: Contact them for pricing
- Yellowfin Analytics: from $50 per user per month
- Yellowfin Analytics+: Contact them for pricing
- Yellowfin Stories: from $10 per user per month
Let Us Help You Dive into Business Intelligence!
Would you like some help getting the most out of a business intelligence dashboard? Ion Technologies can make sure all your data is coming into your application from a variety of sources and we’ll sit down with you to create custom reports and visualizations you can understand.
Contact us via email (info@iontech.nz) or phone (09 553 3057) to have a chat about your specific business needs.