People know about your work the more doors and opportunities will open up for you do good work tell great stories enjoy the rest of this video we're not here for meditating we did that but we're here for dashboard showcase and makeover now why are we doing this we're doing this because i believe in this i believe that in this day and age you can't just do good work and hope to succeed maybe in my dad's age maybe not even in his age right but.
And i run into people it's like oh i let my work speak for itself and i'm like yeah how well has that worked out for you most people who um whom i've heard say this it just hasn't worked out that great because it doesn't work i don't think it works in this day and age you got to do good work but you got to tell great stories you got to be able to tell others about the awesome work you've done think about all the people you look up to in your industry i mean if you think about it most of them they're just telling stories about the.
Work right i mean they're blogging they're in youtube they're doing conferences all this stuff right and of course when i say this there are a lot of objections and people's like for one who's like oh robbie my data is sensitive well yeah so is everybody else's but they're out there blogging youtubing be speaking on conferences right so there is a way and you can find it right because again this is what's going to elevate your career this is what's going to get you to that breakthrough success those are the times we're in.
So dashboard showcase we want it to be a platform a stepping stone a safe space where you can come in and just try it out even if you're really scared even if your knees are knocking like oh my god this is scary just do it we gonna be nice to you nobody's gonna say bad things we're gonna cheer for you and yeah hey we may give you some constructive feedback right we may say how to take your game to the next level but the key thing is you get to tell your story you get to.
Performance review so it's good we want to start that snowball and we feel that can start here so this is the safe space for you guys to get to tell your story so that's the premise and we have some amazing submissions today well actually i don't know i mean we're gonna see and you'll be the judge uh but certainly i wanna applaud them for the courage praveen is here he's standing dashboard uh so let's see so folks if you sent in your dashboard then uh so praveen i got you and we also had emily.
Naveen so the some some of them were submitted earlier so they may not be here uh naveen matthias uh gabriel and oba so i see praveen uh if any of the other members are here emily uh naveen mathias gabriel oba just put that in the chat but i'm thinking that's a sign okay emily emily improving here awesome great so let's do this um hold on guys i'm gonna find this.
Oh yay like this okay let's do the and and here we go looks like it's gonna be emily all right yay all right so emily it is so let's start there praveen will take you next and let me pull up.
So emily sends this in and initially it's at code19 dashboard and and um but what she said is that they're using this to make decisions around when to come back to office that's that's super interesting to me because i know a lot of um a lot of companies are kind of working working with the same decision so first of all we want to celebrate.
Emily and her courage to do this you know it's not always easy it's not easy for everybody and yeah it just takes a little bit of courage and of course a little bit of work to to do this to to tell you a part of the story but guys there's a difference between working in your job versus working on your career right and we're so focused on doing our jobs we forget about the career and so yeah so kudos to emily for that and again i encourage use that as an.
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Inspiration guys use this whole session as inspiration i was like yup if they can do it i can do it too
Cool so um uh let's start here oh by the way uh a few things here so earlier i i ran these sessions kind of uh i don't have a structure so uh like how to do an audit but since then we have updated the the visualization module and i recorded.The whole thing recently and let me find the right slides oh yeah there we go oh yeah this is it so those who are in our program in our learn power bi program oops not this window where is it here we go uh those who are in the learn part of your program the powerpoint slides you're seeing they're just the material for the visualization module.
So you can always go through that and it talks about all of this basically what we're doing here is a dashboard audit and of course you know the lessons here walk you step by step you can see the pretty detailed videos and there's some bonus videos and all that stuff so all of that is inside your course right all of that is there let me move to something interesting and that's that's what i'm basing this on and yep these are the steps we're going to take first impression first.
Focus flow selection of elements pixel economy aesthetics even if you're not part of the program as you see me go through this it's gonna well at least you'll get get the idea right and of course the course goes in more detail now of course if you are interested in a program then you can just go to our site learnpowerbi.com and there's all information there so here yeah just click on training and that has information on joining the program if you're interested.
Cool so let's uh let's do this so i'm going to put this on the side first impression first focus flow i'm going to put this on my on my other screen and then let's look at the dashboard and i know there are two so i don't know which one to start with frankly i'm liking this one a little bit more so let's start here perfect perfect.
On the screen [Music] let's try again all right guys this is looking good space document demo great okay so the first thing on my list is the first impression and i know it's a little bit subjective but once you see enough i think it looks attractive to me i mean yeah i think visually i would say first impression i like it i like it right okay so and then we're gonna do the next one which is first focus so for this.
Um you can also call this a squint test so i just squint my eyes so i can't see really well and see what's the first thing that jumps at me and and again you can try the same thing and sometimes you you may get different results but for me the first thing that jumped out was this banner up top now of course why and of course that's what we go into into our visualization module inside our course it is this position is really important the top part is really important visually because we usually.
Scan from uh this way right because that's how we read so top top and top left is really important so it's in a primary position and i think the color is quite bold as well it's not it's garish but it's you know bold color so that really stands out so that was the first focus for me and i'll say the second thing that that kind of got my focus was this map and it is in a good position so again top left is generally more important than certainly bottom right because that's.
The way we visually scan and of course the size uh it is pretty big as well so that was my first focus now of course so guys uh a little bit about what i teach in the course of course those who are in the program already know it but the premise behind this is that most dashboards and most visualization is done by accident i mean because these people just haven't studied you know frankly nobody told them that yeah hey you need to study this stuff and not just put things together and i was the.
Same way right i mean i was in excel and just put stuff together but once i understood
Uh so i i make a joke in there it's like imagine if buildings were built by people who had never studied architecture that would be a disaster right but visualizations are often built that way and that's okay and the good news is that it's really easy to fix once you understand some of these score principles okay so let's keep working through our list and oops let me go back to my checklist.Again so we did the first impression first focus let's do the flow how is the dashboard flowing and a lot of that is based on white space white space as i talked about in the course is one of the most powerful elements in building a dashboard right yep you have nothing there so how does this flow i'll say that so generally if you know generally our eyes scan this way but you can change that and that's what gives you the power as a visualization architect right so you can design that.
Flow uh by kind of controlling that when you don't want people to scan this way and so forth so uh so generally we scan this way so i'll certainly say that i you know i would scan this first and and then so of course you can see emily has used visual elements right so since our background is not white but i would call that white space right so so that she has basically a border around this thing right so again since her background is not white the colors are flipped the white thing is creating a border it's creating a fill.
And a border so clearly she is yeah she wants people to take this in separately so that's the flow and then go on to these other elements so if i was scanning it i would look at the top and then i would look at this because it's visually separate and then i'll look here and then i'll look there right so that's that's that's the flow and again it's not about right or wrong necessarily it's about uh is it by design or is it by accident right was it was it thought out and again guys i mean i'll admit most of the dashboards that i.
Built in my career were not thought out just because i had never learned these concepts but once i did you realize that that's far more effective right so if that's how emily designed if that's how we emily wanted people to consume it then a1 if not hey here's a chance to you know kind of focus and do something uh think about it right i mean so yeah okay well so um so i think that is the flow and let's talk about um so let's uh let's pause here for a little bit i feel uh i felt there was something there in.
The flow um yeah so generally i i talk about the power pattern inside the course which is uh i like starting with high level numbers up top and maybe let me pull up the dashboard see if i can pull up the dashboard for me for you guys [Music] i'll pull that up on the side and we'll keep going here okay so that you can see that.
Example um now waiting for it um okay so uh generally i like having the power pattern is the high level numbers up here and of course it's all by design it's up here because that's often the most important spot right on on your on your real estate on your screen real estate and then i like showing some breakdowns and some trends and then a little bit of detail so let's um.
I think my example is almost up so just give me one second all right guys power bi loading i just want to show you an example before we proceed what is my chat window though you know i didn't want to try okay robert i'm just gonna promote your panelist just so you can prompt me if something.
Needs my attention yeah so jeff has a good question if you move high level numbers up to the top or remove the slicers cool so let's go in here so this is what my example looks like and uh let's get rid of this guy so you can see high level numbers at the top and then some breakdowns and trends.
And then a little bit of detail not too much detail i know uh coming from excel i would fill this space with like tables and tables it would pretty much look like an excel sheet but different it's okay but you know there's something better waiting for you uh uh uh tomas is sharing something awesome so yep overview first zoom and filter then details on demand yeah i'm not sure about the filter or the slicers so let's talk about that so so um.
Okay so um so by the way we often go through these six steps in an iterative manner go through all of it and i'm like thinking about should i go through all of it and then kind of come back uh let's do that so let's uh so we talked about the flow let's not like you know for now i'm gonna kind of like hold my feedback for a bit and and then just move through the elements observe them and then come back i think that that's a good approach anyway so.
Let's think about the selection of elements um so here um now maps are probably the most abused ones or misused ones in power bi i have nothing against maps but you know maps have a specific purpose they work in a specific setting but they're often not used in that setting and often you can have other visuals you're more effective uh for this one i'm leaning towards so so uh by the way the next.
The next item on our thing is pixel economy which is like how effectively and you know are we communicating data and that's one reason why maps are misused because they're often not the most effective way so think about the pixels that this is taking the number of pixels and the color of pixels man this is taking a lot of color and and all of that right and it's just um expensive and of course in my program i talked about how you should think about you're spending a dollar for each pixel and the more it's colored so.
So yeah so it's an expensive element and i don't think it's the most effective one so and again no right or wrong right i mean you can just judge you can just try different things and see if something else works better but i think this this there may be some opportunity here uh this one seems to be showing the high level element and again this is this is not the most effective visual it takes a lot more space this dashboard idea comes from this idea.
Of you know plain dashboards or cockpits or things like that and it's just [Music] not not considered optimal so you know but that so that can be reconsidered tables this is probably good there's a bit of trend the shading i'm not 100 sure about that frankly for me the the shading is maybe a little tad too complicated like i feel like i have to work a little bit to understand what the shading is if the shading wasn't there then you know.
We have all seen line and column charts and we can kind of understand that right so and again no right or wrong you just have to understand that because of the user's element the user has to pause and think so i have to think right now like oh well what yeah so if i saw a line and column i think i would get to the answer quicker but this is making me pause so the column is capacity got it uh line is number of occupant got it and then they seem to have this 90 cap 90 90 cap so.
Okay so let me let me think what does that mean um so 90 cap i think is based on the capacity so that's that's the number of people we can have okay cool i think i'm understanding it of course you know i mean it's emily's i'm sure the subject matter expert and maybe the people who are seeing this they know this stuff so it wouldn't be a struggle so again you kind of judge that for yourself but again dashboard by design not by accident so you realize that i'm adding the slight level of complexity is that okay with my.
Audience is that not and then of course we have the table element over here cool so let's um and and so let's let's talk about some of the stuff here so let's come back here and again we start with high level numbers because that gives the grounding and tamash talked about the same thing there's some discussion on slicers uh we'll definitely talk about that slice is off screen yep so so i think if you look at this i would say that the what are the big number levels and now i'm noticing and.
Again that's why guys map is is is is sometimes you have to be careful because map is is coding so much information like think about this only these lines think about pixel economy everything is being drawn on the screen imagine if you were paying a dollar a thousand dollars for drawing every pixel that's a lot of money you're spending a lot of money what are you getting in return so i'm not convinced with getting a good return on investment yet and then i i just noticed this night right now even though it's so big but i hadn't noticed.
It earlier i noticed that this thing is repeated right and it's okay to repeat it i'm not calling that but just the fact that it's being hidden away in this so again the goal is to ground them in the high level numbers at least that's how i like to start right they have an understanding they have like okay cool right i mean you're over here we're doing great and then you give them more information like who's doing great is it us is it something like that right so you dive in the details so the highest level number for me here are are probably this one.
A sign head count versus seats so i'm guessing seven four two six is the seats and um six six 6683 is the target i guess and they have assigned a little bit more i don't know if that's good or bad that would be bad in in i think i mean uh signed count uh and again some of it maybe me just not knowing the subject matter right but again right so so i'm pretty sure this is a high level number and of course it's repeated.
Here as well right so um you want to elevate that you want to make that the star so again think about it right the dashboard the goal is not to have like a and unfortunately i think about where the word comes from dashboard it comes from this you know how airplane pilots would have all these gauges but we have taken that word too literally we're not building you know a guide for airline pilots like this we're running a business and the data needs to be the star.
So we need to elevate this and i think it's getting lost a little bit so i would focus on that uh so yeah so the idea of the what i talk about a pixel economy and we talk about it at length inside of course is is is that right that the pixels are spent invested on our star data and by the way filters are not that filters frankly once you set them you want to know what are the filters and or be able to check it or something but that's not data that's not those are not the stars.
The the heroes and of your movie right so you want to de-emphasize them so i will i will definitely think about it so i like putting my slicers here off that now of course you can use the filter pane i like using both if i want to make it really obvious and easy to use i put it on the screen as slicers and if i can you probably have seen those you know where the where you click a button and all the slicers pop up but you realize that that creates a.
Distance that is something now the users have to learn right so if i want to make it really easy i just put the slicers on the side right here if i want to be slightly fancier i might have like oh yeah click this button to see the slicers and then it pops out and if sometimes i use a filter pane because either the user is trained or i've just run out of real estate or something like that right but again de-emphasize the slicers because they're not data so and that would give us a space to maybe elevate some of these numbers and again you think about it i mean.
And sometimes you might say that um oh oliver everybody everybody in my group knows these numbers but guys i think you're going to maximize your impact if you create a report so that it is more accessible to more people somebody outside of the button can see and go oh yeah that's interesting right uh somebody who's new to the department can can see and understand it right so so think about this right i mean instead of this if she spelled it out like i.
Struggled a little bit i'm like i i think this is the assigned headcount and and i really only knew that because it was spelled out here total head count otherwise i don't know i was like is that the sign that gown is that the sign that count right but i knew that and then i'm like i'm guessing this one is a seats and then this was like um i think it's a target but why is it good that we have assigned more people than our target i mean that would be a bad thing which should mean this should be red or pink at least or.
Something right so so i was struggling with the green color you can spell it all out if you if you do use like similar elements and and of course by moving the slicers you might have some space at the top so elevate the data right i think that would that would uh that would help move the slicers um so so high level data at the top and then um let's see so uh so first thing that i go for are breakdowns and again so right now the breakdowns are in this.
Slightly expensive element we have spent a lot of money on this right so again you think you should think about every pixel costs you money thousand dollars and then the more bright the pixel right uh the more you spend so you're spending a lot more on this color because it's brighter than others than others and and you should when you need to emphasize when you need to make your data a star you should like again right so so that's okay but again dashboard by design not by accident as long as it's intentional i'm okay.