How do we love data? Let us count the ways.
Data helps us understand the world around us. Data informs our decisions, providing the “because” answers to all those who ask “Why?” Data helps us deliver better experiences because we have the insights required to make meaningful changes. Data makes us look smart — and helps us be smart. Want more data about why we love data? The list goes on.
So when you ask our team about their favorite Sogolytics features, there’s a good chance you’re going to hear a lot about data.
This time, among the highlights of our 32.0 release, you’re going to hear a lot of us celebrating the same thing: Custom Dashboards. If you delight in data, too, it’s time to dive in to this exciting new feature.
All the dashboards, all the time
To get right to it, there’s a LOT of talk about dashboards these days. As many researchers shift from point-in-time studies to ongoing data collection, there’s a growing need to track trends and monitor shifts in real time.
While a report may give a deep dive into a better understanding of a particular issue, a dynamic dashboard offers the capability to see what’s changing as it happens.
Designed well, a great dashboard can give quick insights into all of your most important data points at a glance. Rather than reviewing pages and pages of good-to-know analysis in a complex report, a dashboard can help focus attention on the critical need-to-know metrics.
Is a dashboard better than a report? It’s fair to note that they each have a different role to play in building a complete data picture, so for all the excitement about dashboards, we won’t stop talking about reports anytime soon!
What’s the deal with Custom Dashboards?
Within the Sogolytics platform, you may already be familiar with the CX Dashboard and the EX Dashboard. Both offer perfect examples of what makes a dashboard great. These formats bring together data from multiple projects, make it easy to review trends at a glance, and simplify views by Tags and filters.
What’s not to love? One challenge, as you might guess from their names, is that CX Dashboards show CX projects and EX Dashboards show EX projects. No surprise there, but wouldn’t it be awesome to bring together data from different kinds of projects into the same single view?
Short answer: Yes! Custom Dashboards will allow you to bring together data from different kinds of projects, present key insights in the format of your choice, and share the whole thing — or key slices — with different stakeholders. Winning!
Give it up for widgets!
In a world where we can bring together different snippets of data to showcase different kinds of insights, we need widgets.
A widget is like a mini window offering a specific view into a certain chunk of data. It could be a bar graph or a table, a trend or a pie chart, or plenty of other types of display options.
In choosing a widget type, the key question is to figure out the best way to show your audience the right insights. What do they most want to know? Perhaps you’re looking for an overall number for your current NPS. Maybe you’d like to see the NPS for specific locations, or the trend for a certain product type.
The Custom Dashboard allows you to pick and choose the widgets you need and arrange them in the right order to tell the story you want to highlight. Keep it simple and your narrative will be clear.
Divide and conquer
While data is useful for everyone, different stakeholders need different data. Perhaps you prep an overall Custom Dashboard and then use Dashboard-Level Segmentation to send out a department-specific slice to each department head. (If you’re already a fan of Report-Level Segmentation in Omni, this should sound familiar!)
If your stakeholders need to see the data in slightly different ways, make a copy of your original Custom Dashboard and then tweak it up! Some people really want to include open-ended responses, some prefer numbers to graphs, and still others prefer different color schemes. Rather than starting from scratch each time, build faster with duplication and customization.
Looking ahead
If you’re super excited about the potential of Custom Dashboards, you’re not alone! As this feature rolls out, the future is already looking bright! Consider the possibilities…
Moving forward, we’ll expand to new data sources for widgets. Beyond just pulling insights from projects, consider pulling data from cross-project CX or EX Tags or even Excel files. Imagine how these opportunities will expand in connection with integrations or Custom Directories or…!
Okay, one thing at a time! Check out Custom Dashboards as they roll out over the next few weeks. 🙂
Got questions? Connect with your account manager or book a support call to learn more. Not seeing this feature in your account? Connect with us to learn more about your options!
