Confessions of a Dashboard-a-holic

Guest writers: John Dorman, CPA, COO/Director of Admin SVS, Grant McInnes, Director BI and Software Development and Michael Hebert, Director, Membership Operations, Texas Medical Association

Dashboard Confessional is the name of an American rock band. I oftentimes find myself needing to confess my obsession with the need for “all data, all the time.” You don’t need to come all the way to the dark side of dashboards, but there is a happy medium you should be exploring.

How do you keep informed of your organization’s financial and membership measurements? Are you a “paper reports-only” organization? Do you receive the reports regularly or on an as-requested basis? Do reports arrive periodically in your email inbox without requiring staff intervention? Do your reports make you ask “what if” types of questions? Are you proactive in solving problems before they occur or does your reporting system simply inform you that you have a problem?

In years past for Texas Medical Association (TMA), we were not always well informed on membership statistics and financial reports. Our reports were prepared at month-end only. Comparisons to past years normally focused on year-end reports only. The ability to identify trends was lacking. Most membership systems only allow you to capture report counts as of the date the report is being prepared. Comparisons on a specific day of the year to past year(s) on that same day are not normally a feature provided. In order to achieve comparisons such as this, we had to start capturing daily counts and values for key measurements using business intelligence software.

Dashboards can be used by leadership to track key indicators about their business by using key performance indicators (kpi’s), charts and tables that are presented in a concise manner. It is impossible for anyone to analyze the massive amounts of data that is produced daily by their business. A good dashboard allows the end user to quickly look at the data presented and recognize trends that point toward future performance. It presents accountability by showing areas of weakness and areas of strong performance.

Example of TMA's dashboard.

The first step is to identify the data elements needed to help you manage your organization. For a membership organization, example data elements might be: 1) current membership count in comparison to prior years; 2) financial statement budget comparison as of the most recent reporting period; 3) dues collections as a percentage of your budget in comparison to prior years; and, 4) percentage of PAC participants compared to your membership as a whole, etc.

Once the data elements have been identified, then begins the challenge of determining how the information can be retrieved from the disparate data sources. The process can be automated or can be manually updated as part of your staff’s daily job responsibilities. After the data elements are retrieved, then comes the task of selecting the best manner in which to display the relevant information, e.g., bar chart, columnar chart, pie chart, data table, kpi’s, etc.

Finally, a reporting vehicle must be selected. This vehicle could be a simple Excel spreadsheet, a reporting services report or a customized charting tool.

An example of a single chart from TMA's dashboard.

At TMA, we have created our own dashboard reporting system. Each chart is created
and identified with users based on content. When each user logs in over the web, only the charts associated with that user are displayed. A dashboard with select charts for TMA’s Board of Trustees is also provided. Each night, all of the charts are refreshed with data from our financial and membership systems.

In addition, email reports are sent via reporting services on a subscription basis to all parties with interest in the relevant data. Reporting services allow the end user to have access to key measurements via email on an as-needed basis (daily, weekly or monthly). Key reports can be automatically sent to leadership, giving them an instant snapshot of data pertaining to the operation of the company. It is no longer necessary to go through the time-consuming process of initiating a data request to your IT department.

Refreshable spreadsheets can be used by internal staff and by external groups, such as county medical society staff. Reports can be written with Excel that will pull refreshed data live from your database. When the data is updated in the membership database, it is updated in the spreadsheet as soon as it is refreshed. By using the features of Excel, the end user can sort, filter and format the data as needed for their individual requirements.

Running your organization without a dashboard of some form or fashion can be like riding in the trunk of your car reading a roadmap. You know you’re moving, but you don’t know in which direction or how fast you are traveling. You only know where you are after the vehicle stops and you climb out of the trunk. Your dashboard can serve as your “heads up display” and even if you are constantly traveling and unable to meet with your staff, you can still have access to the key data elements of your organization’s performance. You and your organization can’t expect to jump straight to the end result. There’s much work and planning involved and it’s an ongoing process. Start with a small number of data elements and use an inexpensive data delivery vehicle and make incremental improvements.

If you would like to hear more about our dashboard experiences and see live examples of our dashboards, please plan to join us at our presentation "Confessions of a “Dashboard-a-holic” on Saturday, July 23 as part of the 2011 AAMSE Annual Conference in Boston, MA.