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What A Dashboard Is For
The useful KPI dashboard examples all pass the same test: somebody opens the board to answer a question they were already asking. A dashboard built to display everything answers nothing, and then costs somebody an afternoon a month to maintain. At dataflos we build and run these boards for UK operators, and the six below come up most often.
A dashboard is the right format when the question is asked often and the answer changes often. When the question is asked four times a year, a report is cheaper and clearer. If you are still deciding which you need, business intelligence and dashboards sets out the difference.
6 KPI Dashboard Examples
These KPI dashboard examples are shapes rather than templates: the metrics that belong on yours depend on the question the board answers.
The executive board
Eight to twelve numbers, no more, on one screen: revenue against plan, pipeline coverage, cash, and the operational metric your business actually lives on. Read daily by the founder in under a minute. Start here, because it is the board that exposes whether your numbers agree with each other.
The marketing channel board
Spend, leads and cost per lead by channel, each with its trend beside it. Answers where the next pound goes.
The sales pipeline board
Deals by stage and by age, with the weighted forecast against target. Answers which deals need attention today.
The finance board
Cash position, committed spend and margin by service line. Answers whether the shape of the month is what was planned.
The operations board
Throughput, cycle time and anything breaching its service level. Answers where the bottleneck is right now.
The client account board
One view per client: delivery, spend, results and renewal date. Answers which relationships need attention before they become a renewal problem.
Six boards is more than most companies of 11 to 50 people need at once. Two that are built properly and trusted will beat six that disagree.
How To Tell A Good Board From A Busy One
Four tests, and passing them matters more than which tool you use.
It fits on one screen
If it scrolls, it is two dashboards wearing one name. Split it.
Every number has an owner
A metric nobody owns is a metric nobody fixes when it breaks.
It shows the change, not just the value
A number with no comparison is trivia. Last week, last month or target, beside the value.
It agrees with the report next to it
Boards that disagree get abandoned within a quarter. This is a modelling problem, not a charting one, and it is the work most of a first build goes into.
Tool choice matters far less than these four. Power BI, Looker Studio and Tableau will all produce a board people trust, or one they ignore, depending entirely on the modelling underneath.
What A Dashboard Set Costs
A first set is a fixed-scope build at dataflos from £8,130: agree the metrics, connect the sources, model each one once, ship the first boards. Running them, and changing them as the business changes, is the Fractional Data Team at £12,950 a month plus £5,300 setup.
For the market context around those numbers, including published UK contractor day rates, see data consulting rates.
