Stop 05 · Data Analysis for Business AnalystsTopics · 5/10

Building Reports & Dashboards

In short

If managers keep messaging you for 'this week's numbers', you need a dashboard. Build it right and it answers their questions before they ask. Build it wrong and nobody opens it after week two.

Turning raw data into a focused, recurring view stakeholders can check without asking for a manual update every time — the discipline is choosing what to include as much as what to leave out.

The purple blob drives a small cartoon car, glancing at a round dial with a needle.

Think of it like this

A car's dashboard

Your car dashboard shows speed, fuel and a warning light. It doesn't show the temperature of every engine part. You glance, decide, and keep driving. A good business dashboard is the same: only what helps someone decide right now.

Watch it happen

From request to a dashboard people use

Audience

Decisions

Metrics

Layout

Refresh

1/5Who's it for? A store manager needs today's numbers. A director needs monthly trends.

The big ideas

What you need to know

One audience per dashboard

A dashboard trying to serve the CEO and the support team usually serves neither. Split it.

Show targets

'4.2 days' means nothing alone. '4.2 days vs target of 3' tells you there's a problem.

Report vs dashboard

A report is a detailed snapshot, often a table. A dashboard is a live, at-a-glance view for monitoring.

Common tools

Power BI, Tableau, Looker Studio and even Google Sheets charts. The thinking matters more than the tool.

Save yourself the pain

Common mistakes

Oops

Adding every metric a stakeholder mentions.

Do this instead

Ask what they'd do differently if each number changed. If nothing, leave it off.

Oops

Launching and never checking usage.

Do this instead

Ask users after two weeks what they look at and what they ignore, then trim.

Your mission

Build a one-page dashboard

~45 min

Quick check

A dashboard has 25 charts and managers rarely open it. What's the most likely fix?

Go deeper

1Design a 5-6 metric dashboard for a hypothetical business process, on paper first.
2Learn to structure a report around the decision it's meant to support, not just data availability.
3Practice presenting a report with a clear recommendation, not just numbers.