Visio as a Dashboard UI

[sbmack7]

This is a cross post from the General forum. I'm trying to get more
feedback:

I'm considering using Visio to build a management dashboard for a
client. He has 5 store locations so I'm thinking that Visio page
links from an aggregated performance dashboard to the individual
stores for drill down would work well.

However, I see that there are many off-the-shelf dashboard products
available now. I'm pretty fair at Visio and VBA. Is Visio a good
solution for this use case? Or are the OTS products even more
"turnkey"? Note that the dashboard would be used only for internal
purposes.

If Visio would work, any recommendations on third party dashboard
shapes or add-ins for this purpose?

Appreciate any insights.

Thanks,

SteveM

 

[Al Edlund]

Since it sounds like you already have a list of OTS solutions that you might
want to evaluate, you might want to build a matrix of the functional
requirements that your "client" is paying you to evaluate
You can then use it to decide whether they meet, miss, or exceed what your
client wants (the value/price equation). You probably should move to do
build/buy/lease scenario (at least by then you would have an idea of what
platforms might be needed). It's only after you have done that piece of work
that you move into deciding whether to attempt to roll your own.

al