Do Your Users Hate Your Dashboard and Reporting Solution?
No one can deny that Business Intelligence tools play a critical role in helping companies achieve both short and long-term goals. However, most BI tools that are currently in use are wrong for the majority of people who must work with those tools. A business must be able to easily access actionable information that will drive educated decision-making, however, most tools on the market are far too complex for the average user.
When users express frustration with BI tools, it’s often because they are stuck with one of two types of scenarios: tools that require extensive development and database knowledge, or tools that claim to be “for everyone,” but are still too complex for the average user to work with.
Some users are also unhappy with reporting and are therefore requesting more custom, ad-hoc, better interactive dashboards that they can use in embedded analytics.
How does this happen? Most business leaders make the mistake of adopting BI tools without understanding the needs of their users. They often consult with IT teams whose skill sets and expertise are far different from non-technical employees. These power-users typically look for advanced functionality without considering usability. As a result, the rest of the organization is forced to deal with complex tools that don’t suit their needs.
The most common frustrations of users when it comes to legacy BI reporting tools are:
- Lack of access to mission-critical data
- The inability to access data on the go
- The tool is simply too complex to use
- Users must rely on Excel spreadsheets
In order to correct these problems, leadership teams must take the time to understand the true needs of the user, and they must be prepared to discover that the needs of each user will, in fact, be different.
It can be an extremely useful exercise to examine these common employee frustrations, so that a new tool can be adopted that will satisfy both the needs of the average user, but will also meet the needs of the organization’s more advanced users.