Looks Great, But What Action Will You Take? Build Actionable Dashboards That Drive Better Decisions

The Missing Piece in Most Dashboards? Actionable Insights

This blog is focused on building dashboards that are genuinely actionable. Many reports and dashboards have clear visuals, follow UX principles, have included the right end-users when gathering the requirements, yet they still don’t drive action.

While good design and UX are very important, this blog is about the discussing some other parts that lead to action and yet often get missed or are discussed as often.

Your reports and dashboards provide insights, for example if a house builder can see movement of interest rates or a retailer can see the UK Consumer Price Index that is insight, but the real question is, is it actionable?

Don’t Leave Action To Chance - Design an Actionable Dashboard

Let’s not just become another BI marketing brochure. You know the type. You go to a BI conference, walk around, pick up a few leaflets from vendors and every single one promises “actionable insights and “data-driven decisions”.

All sounds great, but here’s the thing. To create Power BI dashboards or any analytics dashboards that are actionable and user-friendly, we need to intentionally design with action in mind. Actions don't just come ready with every build. Everything I mention in this blog, I have been doing and trying for years. In your next project try them out, let me know which work best for you.  

Who is The Owner?! Assign An Owner To The Dashboard

This ties back to some of my other blogs, but is very relevant here and I will tell you why. I always say if you don’t know the audience or if you aren’t building for them, you are doomed from the start.

Now think about it from an action perspective, if there is no genuine end user/s to take ownership of the solution or dashboard we are building (and the KPIs on the dashboard), then how can any action be taken!? To assign an owner means for them to take some level of responsibility and this ensures the person putting their name on it is more likely to give you the KPIs, metrics and other elements they genuinely need to monitor, track and take action on. We need the right person to make informed decisions.

I have seen so many dashboards and reporting solutions that have just been designed for the sake of it, with no clear audience. They just remain floating dashboards, hosted somewhere with no usage, let alone action.

Don’t Forget The Context - Business Intelligence Needs It

You got the right person, they are the owner. After some discussions, they said Sales, Conversion, Turnover Ratio are the three core KPIs they must monitor and track to know what’s going on.

Great. So, if I see £12.5M I guess that’s good right, after all £12.5M in 1 month is a big number for me. But, context is key. This goes all the way back to Stephen Few's rules on data visualisation and best practices for effective dashboard development. Seeing a standalone number (metric / measure) such as £12.5M doesn’t tell us whether it’s good or bad, positive or negative, whether I can sleep like comfortably at night or panic and do something. Now, if you are in the world of data visualisation and reporting, this might seem obvious to you, but when helping organisations, I still find this to be very common.

Take your Sales, Conversion, Turnover Ratio and compare it to something like LY, Forecast, Budget, Targets, anything. We need to benchmark it against something to understand if we are in the red or green. This is a KPI!

If you aren’t even answering if something is good or bad, you have even less chance of being able to get to the action. Also, once you have defined what “good” or “bad” looks like, be sure to consider alerts. This should apply to all tools, not just Power BI. So, when a KPI crosses a threshold, the right person is notified. You're not just hoping they’ll check the dashboard in time, you’re designing the solution to flag the moment action is needed. Want to know more about alerts and Data Activator, check out this blog here: Can Power BI Send Emails? 6 Powerful Ways to Automate Alerts & Reports

Ask Action Questions - It's Needed for Analytics Dashboards

Please try this one out. I promise, it helps! So, I have a very specific process on how I like to collect my reporting requirements. Also, I go into more detail in other blogs and videos of mine, which I have added below in the "Read Our Other Blogs" section.

Whenever conducting a data storytelling workshop for gathering requirements, I collect various information by asking a set of tailored questions to identify trends in user needs. But, the one I want to call out as part of this blog is the actions, asking questions like:

• What action would you take?
• How can you fix it?
• Have we previously had similar issues, how did you approach it?
• Is there anything that can be done here?
• Would it be you or someone else taking the action?

As I said above, we need to build it into our process. I will share an example that I have come across when running workshops. Hope this shows you how powerful asking about the action is.

Previously working with a UK house builder (sales and marketing exec team), we started with their purpose, which was around maximising reservation conversions and one of the KPIs was of course Reservation Rate (we had plenty more). One of the reasons for this to be in the red is the rising the interest rates from the BoE. Great, what action can you take to fix this? I got blank faces… if your end users are really struggling to provide an action, it means there likely isn’t one that can be taken or easily taken.

Also, I find many times they may just say something due to the pressure of being in a workshop, which is totally normal and understandable. As the person facilitating such sessions and gathering the information that will be used in design and build, we need to look for these signs. So, if we can’t take an action, should we be placing it on the canvas? Not saying to not create dashboard to track and be aware, but should it take up precious screen estate if we all confirm no action can be taken here or it can't be paired with the additional information needed. Plus, yes, it does come down to the type of dashboard you are building, the need of it, etc.

So, asking these types of questions enable you to understand if you are building something that genuinely drives action early on in the process. If it’s a no… remove it or at least deprioritise it for other elements that do have a clear action.

In addition, for the above example I called out we started with their "purpose", so their business objective or goal. I have spoken about the importance of this in many other blogs, hence wont deep dive here. If you want more details have a look at this blog: Reasons Why BI Projects Fail: Analytics & Business Intelligence, specifically the "No Clear Purpose or Business Question" section.

Add a Question in the Title (or Narrative)

I know I’m not the only one who does this as it’s something I’ve seen in the community over the years (and recently), but it’s also something I’ve been pushing myself for a long time. Clients have always responded well to the results.

So, instead of adding a title to your visuals with something basic like “Reservation Rate Over Time” you can make the title a question like: “Is our reservation rate dropping over time?”.

You can take it one step further and maybe add a narrative such as "Reservation rate is on a steady decline - what’s causing it?". Plus, there are ways to do this with Power BI Titles and Subtitles, as we can apply condition formatting by the "FX" button.

Applying the above changes may not seem like much, but they can make a difference.
You’re no longer just labelling your visuals, but instead your prompting a reaction. When showcasing this to end users for the first time, I promote it by saying it pushes the person viewing the report to think more around what can be done, so more on the action.

One additional thing, you can emphasise the problematic area too. For example, if the title reads "Reservation rate is on a steady decline - what’s causing it?", why not also highlight the data point or time period contributing the most to this drop. Use a different colour, larger text, and customise elements to create dashboards that stand out. The idea is that it guides the user attention to the potential problem, making it faster and easier to understand and take the next step.

Personal Bookmarks (Views)

If you are not a Power BI user but in analytics, Personal Bookmarks allow the user to save the applied filters, selections, and create dashboards that reflect their preferences. that way when they next access the report, they see their own "personal" view. So, I am sure if your coming from another BI analytics tool, you have the equivalent. If not... time to explore Power BI 😉 Okay, let me explain this and how it can influence actions. Working previously with a group of general managers in hospitality, they mentioned something that stuck with me. They wanted to land on the dashboard and instantly see only their area performance, not the combined view or the view that shows everyone's data.

They weren’t saying the combined picture wasn’t useful, but they wanted their own view to be the starting point or default. I still remember one of them saying, "make it land straight on my numbers". I mean, I was ready to just say yes as I knew we had the personal bookmarks feature and not give it any more thought. But it was emphasised, I care and ACT on my numbers.

Since then, I’ve always promoted the use of personal bookmarks in the Power BI Service during go-live and familiarisation sessions. It always goes down well as it makes insights feel more relevant and increases the chances of people actually doing something with what they see as it relates to their role. Think of it as the next level up from simply avoiding unnecessary visuals or dashboard clutter, not only are we removing the noise, we’re helping each person land straight on what matters most to them.

Now look, is this guaranteed... of course not! Modifying a view to display the end users preferred filters ain't going to make a dashboard instantly actionable, but it may take it a step closer especially with all the other ways and best practices being in play too.

Main Takeaway: Build Action Into the Process, Improve Decision Making

To finish up, most dashboards aren’t short on data or visuals or interactivity. What they’re short on is clarity of purpose and next steps. That’s why if there’s one thing I want you to take away from this blog, it’s this: action needs to be designed in, not hoped for. Your dashboards that you build don't just come action ready. You can’t just assume people will figure out what to do next once the numbers are in front of them.  

Action should be built into your reporting process, ask the right action questions to ensure your dashboards aren’t just admired, but used and improve the decision-making process. Be sure to check out some of our other blogs on data storytelling and making BI dashboards actionable. We offer more information on how to turn data into actionable insights, how we deliver insights through a template approach.

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