Introduction

Dashboards or reports? Both of these are incredibly valuable tools to help your business perform at its best. But what are the differences between these tools, and why do they matter? Do dashboards and reports just have a distinction without a substantial difference—or are they useful for fundamentally different things?

The truth is, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. Dashboards and reports each have their specific uses for different scenarios, but much of their content overlaps.

In this blogpost, we’ll take a closer look at both dashboards and reports, explore where their similarities and differences lie, and which situations are ideal for either dashboard or reporting use.

All about dashboards

Dashboards are virtual, visual interfaces that display KPIs and other relevant metrics to a given business objective or process. The bread-and-butter of what Plecto does and what it offers, dashboards provide at-a-glance data updates that individuals, teams, and management can use to make informed, data-based decisions.

Typically displaying metrics in a user-friendly and engaging format, dashboards are updated with live data in real time for maximal impact and ease of use. Dashboards are a powerful tool because they both centralize and customize relevant data: providing a single source of truth for everyone in a team or workplace to refer to, while also serving as a versatile canvas for management and teams to engage with the exact data relevant to their needs.

Overall, you can think of dashboards as having five key features:

• Visual representation: The use of charts, graphs, and other visualizations to display data.
• Real-time data: Often updating in real-time (or close to it) to reflect current status.
• Customizable: Dashboards can be tailored to show metrics and KPIs relevant to specific roles and teams.
• Interactive elements: These allow users to drill down into data for more detailed insights.
• Centralized information: Bringing together data from various sources into one cohesive view.

You can also incorporate gamification into your Plecto dashboards, allowing your employees and teams to compete among each other as a means to build morale and encourage success across the board. Plecto’s gamification capabilities include contests, instant notifications, achievement badges, the Reward Store, and the Spinning Wheel.

Meanwhile….what about reports?

While dashboards are solely virtual and more informal in tone, reports are actual documents (whether physical or virtual) that present data analysis and insights relevant to a specific timeframe. Reports are more exclusive than dashboards, as they are intended to convey important information about company performance to stakeholders and management.

Stakeholders really only care about one thing: a company’s overall financial performance. Because stakeholders and investors aren’t regularly interfacing with dashboards—and so aren’t concerned about day-to-day issues within your teams—reports break down data more substantially than dashboards do.

Reports typically consist of the following components:

• Executive summary: A brief overview of the report’s main findings and recommendations.
• Introduction: The background information and purpose of the report.
• Methodology: Description of the methods used to gather and analyze data.
• Findings: Presentation of the data and analysis results.
• Discussion: Interpretation of the findings and their implications.
• Conclusion: Summary of the key points and recommendations.
• Appendices: Supporting documents, data tables, and additional information.

What do Plecto dashboards offer?

Plecto dashboards come in two formats: real-time and dynamic. Real-time dashboards show data for an entire team or office, and dynamic dashboards show not only this, but also individualized dashboards for every employee in the system.

Dashboards can also be sorted by function: operational, analytic, and strategic.

• Operational dashboards keep track of day-to-day activities by displaying smaller units closer to the raw data. These could be the number of calls, number of orders packed, number and value of sold items, and so on. These dashboards are best used on a team or office-wide basis.
• Analytical dashboards visualize activities on a team-based level. They measure and identify trends so that businesses can make better future decisions and adjust their strategy. These are best used by team leads and management.
• Strategic dashboards display high-level metrics that reflect the overall business performance and focus on long-term business objectives. These dashboards are particularly suitable for viewership by C-level management and stakeholders.

Building the best dashboards

There are some general guidelines about how to best construct dashboards so that you can obtain the data you need as fast as possible, with minimal confusion and maximum ease of use!

1. Show three to five KPIs per person—but no more!

Keep things clear and in-focus by visualizing only the metrics critical to your business operations. Cluttering up the board leads to a lack of clarity about purpose and direction.

2. Use different types of KPIs

There are three main KPI types: activity, quality, and result. Taken together, these can give a comprehensive and complete overview of how your team or business is running at a given time.

• Activity KPIs: Number of Waiting Calls, Number of Booked Meetings
• Quality KPIs: Sales Win Rate, Sales Conversion Rate, Net Promoter Score
• Result KPIs: Deals Won vs. target, Meetings Completed vs. target, Number of Won Deals, this month vs. last month

3. When in doubt, leave it out

If you believe your dashboard is becoming too cluttered, don’t incorporate any more widgets! You can make already-existing ones bigger, or just create new dashboards altogether to display the data you want.

4. Don’t invent KPIs

If you’re questioning whether a KPI you have in mind exists, it probably doesn’t. It’s not necessary to display all of your data! And thankfully, Plecto has a KPI library to help you determine which KPIs are both real and right for you.

5. No more than one table widget

Table widgets aren’t just powerful visualizations—they’re pretty complex and take up quite a bit of space. So don’t overwhelm your viewers with multiple tables! One per dashboard is sufficient.

6. Use colors for maximum effect

Colors are one of the most effective tools for quickly identifying goals and trends, especially useful when numbers can’t be seen. Plecto provides three conditional colors—red, yellow, and green—that can be used in these contexts. Green is often used to indicate goal completion, yellow for goal in progress, and red for overdue or incomplete goals.

Finally, if you’re new to Plecto—or if you simply want to save time creating dashboards—you can download premade dashboard templates at the Plecto Store. You can also find out more information about Plecto dashboards at our Dashboards Guide.

What do Plecto reports offer?

Plecto reports draw from the same centralized data source as dashboards and contests. And also just like dashboards and contests, Plecto reports update automatically and in real time, creating a highly versatile and engaging tool. Here are a few other noteworthy features of Plecto reports:

• You can set up a schedule, and Plecto will send the most current version of your business overview directly to your email inbox.
• You can export your reports either as Excel spreadsheets or as PowerPoints, saving hours of time.
• While reports use the same visualizations as dashboards, reports allow these visualizations to be filtered into more specific categories, giving stakeholders and other relevant personnel the more substantial data analysis they need.
• Because Plecto’s formulas are universal, you can use them across reports, dashboards, contests, and notifications to obtain the most accurate results.

Widgets in Plecto reports

So that viewers can understand data all the more easily, Plecto offers the following widgets with which to visualize data. Each widget can display up to 20 KPIs, and you can include up to 30 widgets in a single report.

• Column chart
• Bar chart
• Line chart
• Combo chart
• Area chart
• Pie chart
• Waterfall chart
• Table

For more information about editing and exporting your Plecto reports, visit our online Reports Guide.

Conclusion

Both crucial tools for driving business performance, dashboards and reports serve distinct yet complementary roles.

Dashboards offer regularly-updated interactive widgets in real time for viewers to visually engage with KPIs, metrics, and other relevant data, allowing both teams and management to make quick, data-driven decisions.

They might also come with other features, such as gamification, that help promote a culture of teamwide collaboration and transparency. Dashboards are thus ideal for managing daily workflows and enabling regular success towards bigger goals.

Meanwhile, reports provide more formal, detailed data analysis of specific timeframes. Reports are intended for stakeholders and management who require in-depth insights about company performance. Because they provide a full-scale view of a company that stakeholders can use to make long-term decisions, you can think of reports basically as a “check-up” of a company’s health.

Overall, Plecto lets companies harness the power of both dashboards and reports to create a unified data ecosystem. Real-time updates, customizable visualizations, and automated reporting ensures that every level of your business stays informed and aligned.

Combined with its gamification capabilities, Plecto promises to deliver exciting and motivating data-based solutions that can drive your team to perform at its very best. Sign up here for a free two-week trial today!