Putting your numbers up on the wall is what we do! Our dashboards are designed to go on a TV screen, and in this article, we’ll discuss best practices for designing dashboards for displaying on a TV, and how to actually display them.
When designing dashboards to display on the screen less is often more. We recommend 5 – 7 KPI’s on your main dashboard. This is so they can be understood by everyone in your team, and also so they can be read at a glance. An overly complex dashboard that requires someone to stop and digest doesn’t get looked at as much, which reduces its effectiveness. On the other hand, a simple dashboard can be instantly absorbed with little thought needed!
If you need to show more detail, e.g. individual sales and activity KPIs for the Sales Team, consider having a second dashboard for that. That dashboard could be the one shown in the sales office, with the main dashboard used everywhere else.
You might also want to have a dashboard in spaces where the public can see it, e.g. your warehouse, but don’t want to show your actual sales numbers. To do this we can create a copy of your dashboard that uses percentages instead, so your team can still see if they are winning or losing, but anyone outside the business can’t see what your turnover this month is.
Another way to make your dashboard easy to digest is to use colour to show if you are winning or losing. Green = targets met, Red = targets missed. The colour blind aren’t forgotten though; we also include arrows, icons, and markers!
Now, onto how to get the dashboard on to your TV screen. There are 3 ways to display the dashboard on a TV screen:
- A PC plugged into the screen – Using a micro PC (NUC) or any PC or laptop. You could also use a nearby PC and have the TV plugged into that as a second screen. This method is the easiest to set up and gives you full control over how the dashboard is displayed, with the ability to zoom in and out to change the size.
- Smart TV – Using the built in browser you can either log in to your dashboard like you would on a PC or use a published link like this. This method is the cheapest because it doesn’t need any additional hardware apart from the screen, but will often require the dashboard’s sizing to be adjusted to fit the smart TV’s sizing/zoom capabilities.
- Digital signage – This method is the most flexible, as it can be set up with multiple dashboards and screens, as well as displaying other information along with the dashboards. It is more complex to set up though, and often requires a subscription to use.
When you use us to provide your dashboards we will walk you through setting all this up and make it easy. Contact us at any time if you have questions.