The Story of Creating The Guideline: Power BI Dashboard Templates
New Product
I’ve always wanted to launch my own product. And this year, we not only created our own KPI card (which our development team has been dreaming about for a long time), but also realized the idea of creating a dashboard template — The Power BI Guideline.
The idea is not new, but I always thought that I would take into account all the problems! I believe you can’t just give someone a template and let them assemble it; they still need an understanding of visualization rules or the nuances of different charts. But that’s already the knowledge of an experienced data visualization specialist. They don’t need templates!
Templates are needed for beginners or those who rarely deal with them, but then it will be harder for them to apply them correctly!
Visualization Compass
As part of my Guideline, the Visualization Compass became a crucial element. It’s such a simple and compact chart chooser that I would recommend it specifically to beginners. There’s no need to examine dozens of diagrams, no need to try to solve all tasks with a single chart. You need to focus on your goal and your data. And choose the optimal one.
Also, within the guideline, there’s something like a tutorial that explains the basic types of diagrams — not only helping you choose the right one but also providing a bit of theory in a non-intrusive way, along with immediately usable samples, even if there’s little time to delve into such a modest amount of text.
And, no matter how you spin it, the most useful part is not the examples of diagrams or the tutorial, but simply the dashboard examples.
This compass operates very simply.
- You need to determine the task at hand in visualization. Do you need to depict process dynamics, display rankings, data structure, or indicators?
- Then, choose from the two most popular diagrams used for solving that specific task. The compass also helps in the selection process — you need to understand how many categories are in your data (how many columns or lines there will be).
Once you have that information, you just need to see the recommendation and go to the page with a description of that type of diagram. There, you’ll find examples of application, limitations, and a template that you can use as well.
You can read about the comparison of our compass with other chart choosers in this article: Why chart-choosers don’t help, and what is a dataviz compass?
Dashboard Examples — a Source of Inspiration
Surprisingly, the first users were my own colleagues — those who needed to quickly create technical dashboards for themselves but didn’t want to spend time on it while working with clients. And here comes such a wonderful template. So now we have a bunch of pleasant, stylish dashboards in corporate tones that can be created fairly quickly.
And, as feedback has shown, examples are the most convenient and useful source for copying elements. Or you can take an example as the basis for your dashboard and then change what doesn’t fit. This surprised me a bit because I believed that a dashboard should be systematically assembled — from a draft to a structural grid, then to the selection of charts. But every specialist has their own habits, experience, and understanding of convenience; we all think differently.
And of course, I still recommend proceeding systematically — but in practice, it doesn’t always work out that way! Amazing.
So, what templates are available in the guideline?
In the Pro version, there are such dashboards:
- 3 Sales dashboard examples
In the Premium version, we have added several new thematic dashboards:
- Portfolio of projects by cities
- Staff Summary Report
- Digital Costs
- Sales funnel
- Income and expenditure budget
- Salary Calculator
- Event Quality Assessment
These dashboard examples also feature interesting cases we’ve encountered over the past years; perhaps, our experience can be valuable to you as well!
Product Development and Evolution
The history of this product unfolded further as follows:
Initially, it was a small set comprising only basic charts, a compass, theory on diagrams, a set of grids, and three examples. I began testing this product with my audience and received the first feedback.
After that, we created courses on Udemy about it, which was an interesting experience and also brought in a few clients.
We tested a scenario with a demo version where the product’s functionality was severely limited, but it was free — however, it didn’t catch on at all, so we removed this feature.
The latest update was the release of an extended set of charts and the addition of several more thematic templates to the package. That’s how the Premium version emerged.
Comics about Guidelines and Dashboard Portraits
While we were developing this product, I conducted numerous cast dev sessions, studied the audience, and tried to define the portrait of the target audience as clearly as possible.
We created a landing page with funny stories inside. Characters even emerged: an analyst from a meme who suffers, and a square-headed boss who easily loses his temper.
In the B2C version of the website, the main character was the analyst, while in the B2B version, it was the square-headed boss! Both characters turned out to be funny and entertaining, their dreams and lives resonated with me and my team, so I hope these guys will bring joy to you too!
An interesting feature that visitors to the website really liked (according to website analytics) was a carousel where we used neural networks to generate a portrait (personification) for each dashboard example. This resulted in various people creating dashboards in different styles.
On the cover of the website, we have a businesslike and very stylish female analyst who knows what she wants!
Future Plans
I’ll repeat, usually, I’m involved in training and implementing dashboards, developing them, writing books, and creating professional content. Trying to work with a separate product is something new for me, but it’s very interesting. Time will tell how it turns out! Stay tuned! I’ll share my successes and (most interestingly) failures.
How will I further develop this product? Currently, I have some thoughts: create more diverse palettes and designs that are already balanced and beautiful so that people who are better at understanding data than aesthetics don’t have to worry about the appearance of the dashboard.
And most importantly, add more examples of various thematic dashboards; they turned out to be quite in demand.
Feel free to use it, and please provide feedback — I’ll be happy to consider your suggestions!
Wishing everyone strength and great plans for this year, so new, fresh, and clean!
Forward! Toward achievements!
Ahead of us is a new Conference, the Data Viz Award! Many interesting dashboards, wonderful students, new challenges, and tasks await!
Take care of yourselves.
Check The Power BI Guideline - make your analytics smart & sexy!
