Making Data Beautiful Through Data Visualization

Data What?

Simply put, Data Visualization (often referred to as 'Dashboarding') is the process of taking data sets/points from various sources and turning them into charts and graphs that visually articulate what the data says. This enables decisions makers and others in an organization to quickly grasp even complex data points or concepts and allows them to make decisions more efficiently as a result.

Data Visualization used to be reserved primarily for larger businesses with the internal resources to create it. However, with modern, inexpensive, specialist SaaS tools on the market, it is now available to almost any organisation that wants it, regardless of size. And any organisation of any size can certainly benefit from it.

As an organization or business grows, Dashboarding becomes ever more important as the data sources grow and decision making becomes more complex. This is especially true for multinational and global organizations that operate multiple business units in multiple regions with a variety of management systems producing business critical data.

Data Visualization vs. Business Intelligence

Data Visualization is typically considered but one component of Business Intelligence (BI). Data Visualization as a standalone concept usually refers to data around events that have already happened (eg: historical financial or sales performance data). Data Visualization in a BI context usually refers to data that could or will happen, given various inputs and/or assumptions about future events or performance.

Data Sources

At HealthPost (as with most businesses) we have data coming from a multitude of sources such as:

• ERP system
• Google Analytics
• Jira Ticketing System
• Order Management System
• Accountant Provided Data
• And More...

Some ERP's have very good Data Visualization tools for data they hold (eg: NetSuite), however, unless customised/integrated they will rarely present data from external sources (eg: Google Analytics). As such, selecting the right tool for the job usually means one that supports the data sources you have, or at least most of them.

Since we recently went through a Data Visualization tool vetting process at HealthPost (the company I currently work for as eCommerce Manager), I felt it might be useful to share what our high level process looked like and what our shortlist of tools consisted of and why.

It is worth pointing out that in this article we focuse solely on standalone Data Visualization tools vs. tools with a broader BI scope such as Domo or Tableau. We will take a look at BI systems and concepts in more detail in future articles.

The Dashboard Scoping Process

In most organisations, the data that needs to be represented in a Dashboard will usually differ significantly by functional and operational departments within the business and at senior management or board level. It will also differ by data source.

As such, it is worth going through at least a short scoping exercise with these departments to identify which data is most important to them, why and where it comes from. This will enable you to present the relevant data in a visually compelling and engaging way for that specific audience. It will also allow you to identify which data can be presented cross functionally and which data is 'eyes only' to a specific department or individual.

Tool Vetting and Selection

Once you have a basic scope of the Dashboards you require as well as an understanding of all key data sources - it is time to create a shortlist of potential tools that might suit your needs.

You will also need to have a defined budget for your tool set at this stage - or at least a limit that the business sees as being realistic for the type and value of the data being displayed. This will help further refine your vetting process. The great thing is, most tools offer free trial periods for you to see if they are right for you, minimising your risk of selecting the wrong tool substantially

I suggest creating a tool vetting table, listing all the key points of each tool in question. Below is a snapshot example of this sort of table based on the one we developed for HealthPost:

As you can see we have columns covering off key points of the tools with direct links to the tools and their various pages and information. We ordered the tools from most expensive to the least, based on the tool tier we believed we would need to use for daily operations.

We then started with the least expensive tool (set up trial accounts and tested each) and worked up, vetting in or out as we went. Luckily we found a tool that works great for us (Klipfolio) and it also happened to be the 2nd cheapest we had shortlisted.

In the sample Dashboards we created to demo for the management team, we added our GA data, some of our financial data (linked to Google Sheets in near real-time), some of our Jira performance data (linked directly to Jira via data queries using webhooks/API in near real-time) and other sample data from our original scoping document.

The Benefits

It would be difficult to list them all here but in a nutshell Dashboards/Data Visualization make your data come alive! This allows teams to engage with it easier and make use of it more frequently - making for smarter, faster decision making across the board. And it's just plain cool too! Most tools offer a display mode that allows you to display real time data via projector on a wall in your office and this certainly can be inspiring for your teams in the trenches.

The Wrap Up

Well hopefully this article has helped to clarify what Data Visualization is and how it can benefit you and your business. If you don't use a Dashboarding tool already, I urge you to open a free trial account (pro tip: save your trial login credentials in your vetting document for easy access by your team to use to test with) with several providers and just give it a go. I can guarantee you'll be glad you did!

If you have any question or comments, as always I'd love to hear from you.

Cheers,

Jason

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