Visio as a Dashboard UI?

[sbmack7]

I'm considering using Visio to build a management dashboard for a
client. He has 5 store locations so I'm thinking that page links
from the aggregated 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 requirement? Or the OTS products ever more
"turnkey"?

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

Appreciate any insights.

Thanks,

SteveM

 

[Paul Herber]

I'm considering using Visio to build a management dashboard for a
client. He has 5 store locations so I'm thinking that page links
from the aggregated 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 requirement? Or the OTS products ever more
"turnkey"?

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

Do you mean anything more that 5 shapes (perhaps 5 images of stores)
each with a link to another Visio page/document specific to that
store? What would be on the store specific pages?

Are you sure a webpage solution wouldn't be more appropriate?

 

[sbmack7]

Do you mean anything more that 5 shapes (perhaps 5 images of stores)
each with a link to another Visio page/document specific to that
store? What would be on the store specific pages?

Are you sure a webpage solution wouldn't be more appropriate?

Paul,

The dashboard is for management reports of store and corporate
performance. Financial metrics. Internal audience.

I'm just hacking around now. Related to the email I sent you several
weeks ago, I'm see this client/cloud transition that may be happening,
but I'm not prescient enough to think through it clearly.

Hope we can connect up soon.

SteveM

 

[Paul Herber]

Paul,

The dashboard is for management reports of store and corporate
performance. Financial metrics. Internal audience.

I'm just hacking around now. Related to the email I sent you several
weeks ago, I'm see this client/cloud transition that may be happening,
but I'm not prescient enough to think through it clearly.

Hope we can connect up soon.

Hi Steve. well my first idea would be a web page based interface. If
you are pulling any data out of a database/spreadsheet and display it
in columns/rows then a PHP/ASP/Javascript interface would be my first
bet.
I know we are supposed to support Visio here but I think it wise to
use the best tools for the job rather than force a tool to do things
it wasn't designed to do, and probably doesn't do too well.

 

[sbmack7]

Hi Steve. well my first idea would be a web page based interface. If
you are pulling any data out of a database/spreadsheet and display it
in columns/rows then a PHP/ASP/Javascript interface would be my first
bet.
I know we are supposed to support Visio here but I think it wise to
use the best tools for the job rather than force a tool to do things
it wasn't designed to do, and probably doesn't do too well.

Paul,

Thanks for the note.

My intent is not columnar data. But the DataGraphics type stuff for
"management by exception" type review. I'm thinking I can load up
shapes that tell a good story of the financial picture in a compact
way. I'm also interested in true charting with multiple data series.
I've been looking at the Charting Shapes stencil. But it looks like
I'd have to map data feeds to the shape with VBA. Which I can do I
suppose. But that gets me back to my original question about Visio
versus a dedicated Dashboard software tool where I may not have to
write code.

So given that, any modified guidance?

Steve