A screen per role
Not everyone needs the same view. The team on the ground sees their own figures and management sees the whole. A crowded screen hides the number that matters among the ones that do not.
Reporting and Dashboards
A few months after a dashboard goes in, in most places nobody looks at it. The reason is usually not a missing chart but a lack of trust in the figure. Once somebody sees a number that does not add up, they do not come back a second time.
So we start with definitions rather than charts. What does revenue mean here, do cancelled orders count, are refunds taken off. A chart drawn before those questions are answered is just a decorated mistake.
Talk to us about thisWhat the System Covers
One definition
The same figure coming out differently on two screens ends trust immediately. Each measure is defined in one place, and both reports use that definition.
Live or summarised
Not every figure has to be live. Heavy queries calculated on every load slow the system down. A figure summarised daily is usually enough and keeps the page fast.
Comparison
A number on its own says nothing. Where it sits against last month, last year or another branch is the actual information. A dashboard without comparison is a sign rather than an instrument.
Exporting
At some point teams want the data in a spreadsheet. On export, the text going into a cell is escaped, because a cell beginning with an equals sign is executed as a formula by the spreadsheet.
Who sees what
Revenue, cost and individual performance are not open information. Reporting permissions are defined separately from operational ones, because not everyone allowed to enter data needs to see the whole picture.
How We Work
- We write the definition of a measure before drawing the chart.
- Heavy calculations are summarised rather than recomputed on every load.
- Exported cells are escaped, so nothing executes on the machine that opens the file.
- Every number on the screen can be traced back to where it came from.
Frequently Asked Questions
You could, and in some situations that is the better answer. If your data already sits in one tidy place, a ready-made tool gets you there faster. The trouble starts when the data is spread across several systems, because then the real work is reconciling the numbers rather than drawing the charts.
It depends on the use. An operational screen should be live, while a management summary is usually fine daily. Making every figure live slows the system down and often buys a freshness nobody actually uses.
Yes. What we pay attention to is the content of the exported cells. If text coming from a user starts with an equals sign, the spreadsheet treats it as a formula and runs it, so cells are written escaped.
If those systems expose their data, yes. The first job is measuring what we can actually reach from each source. With a closed program the only route may be a file transfer, and that directly sets how current the reporting can be.
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