Dashboards for Portals
Description:
Dashboards allow effective integration with a variety of system content and functionality that can be integrated into a portal. It usually integrates with many business intelligence systems and acts as the application to make information available for collaborative use (Lamantia, 2006, para. 4). Usually only specific users can access this information as it is specific for an organisation. It increases the value of each source and assists with decision-making and understanding. Knowledge is created in a variety of forms and is mostly understood electronically in the use of a portal (Verhaart, 2008, pp. 36-37). This helps influence new audiences to use the content a dashboard offers. This tool is useful for influencing positive change in your organisation and can act as a reporting mechanism for managers.
A dashboard also acts as an integrative design tool as several sources can be linked together into one central system (Hurwitz, Halper & Kaufman, 2005, p. 5; Kirtland, 2006, para. 4). Your organisation will find the functionality useful as it enhances the content that it holds and formally structures information towards your mission and will assist with your performance indicators. The tool has many uses for creating decisions at the lower, middle and top levels, and will integrate with many software systems, which means the uses are endless!
Features:
A dashboard is compatible with many operating systems and internet browsers. It uses a secure socket layer protocol so that data can be securely transferred and can be configured for most organisation environments. Specific security requirements can be implemented to suit systems the portal will integrate with. Users can also see what the design is before the portal is integrated (Nowack, 2009, pp. 274-276).
Clear interfaces can be designed to suit an organisations goals. Charts, gauges, drawings and other decision-making widgets can be added using various frameworks. There are many applications that can be added to the solution to suit your organisation (Wahner, 2011, para. 4). There are many other frameworks that integrate with the dashboard solution to create a workable product for your organisation. The design can be incorporated easily with your organisations culture and users will accept the solution easily (see Figure One: Dashboard example). The interfaces are easy to create and content can be built around the functions that users will use.
Figure One: Dashboard example (Perpetuum Software, 2013, para. 1).
Benefits:
A dashboard presents many benefits for your organisation. It can act as a sufficient guide to your users as the system will be designed to meet their needs (Lamantia, 2007, para. 33). As seen below (see Figure Two: Dashboard product example), several connectors can be added to build a dashboard which turns into an effective portal. It is a product that allows essential functionality such as utilities, section, content, navigation, consistency and system integration in one central system. This creates sufficient interoperability between systems and will add value to your dashboard. Other users will accept this solution as interfaces are created in one central system assisting with all diverese information needs (Bellotti et al., 2004, p. 253; Kirtland, 2006, para. 3). Systems are designed towards presenting information to users to meet their needs.
Figure Two: Dashboard product example (Lamantia, 2007, para. 37).
They also support your organisations strategic initiatives and improve their goals. This is done by displaying systems useful to make decisions using data that is continuously updated. It means performance indicators can be followed as appropriate analytical tools can be added (Hadden, 2011, para. 7). However, a decision will need to be made in regards to how information will be organised. This can cause some issues when information is integrated with different systems as some applications use different technical backend schemas to display information on screen. Information will need to be compatible with the systems it uses (Bellotti et al., 2004, p. 254; Hurwitz, Halper & Kaufman, 2005, p. 3; Wahner, 2011, para. 4). Wahner (2004, para. 5) adds there could be some development issues and this could impact on the associated costs and testing.
Tool Evaluation:
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References:
Bellotti, F., De Gloria, A., Poggi, A., Andreone, L., Damiani, S., & Knoll, P. (2004). DesigningHadden. R. (2011). Why do Some Dashboards Succeed While Others Fail? Retrieved from
Hurwitz, J., Halper, F., & Kaufman, M. (2005). Dashboards: Enabling insight and action.
Kirtland, A. (2006). Executive dashboards. Retrieved from
Lamantia, J. (2006). The challenge of dashboards and portals, Boxes and Arrows. Retrieved
Lamantia, J. (2007). Connectors dashboards and portals. Retrieved from
Nowack, B. (2009). Paggr: Linked Data widgets and dashboards. Web Semantics: Science,
Perpetuum Software. (2013). SharpShooter dashboards. Retrieved from
Verhaart, M. H. (2008). The virtualme: A knowledge acquisition framework (Unpublished
Wahner, K. (2011). Pros and cons: When to use a portal and portlets instead of just java web-
