Dashboard Use Cases

Dashboards are a powerful way to move beyond static reports. They turn your analysis into interactive, accessible tools that support real-time exploration, storytelling, and automation. A well-designed dashboard can also serve as a data product, delivering value repeatedly without needing manual intervention ๐Ÿš€

Here are two common use cases:

1. ๐ŸŒ Publish an Interactive Web Version

Use dashboards to share your work online or within your organisation. They let viewers explore results through filters, sliders, and chartsโ€”helping them engage with the data and draw their own insights.

Ideal for:

  • ๐Ÿ“Š Sharing results with stakeholders
  • ๐Ÿ”— Embedding in websites or reports
  • ๐Ÿ“ข Publishing public-facing research or civic dashboards

Example scenarios:

  • A climate researcher publishes an interactive dashboard showing temperature trends across different regions, allowing users to filter by year and location
  • A business analyst creates a sales dashboard that stakeholders can explore without needing to request custom reports
  • A public health team shares COVID-19 vaccination rates with interactive maps and charts

2. ๐Ÿ› ๏ธ Provide a Self-Serve Analysis Tool

Dashboards can also function as client-facing, self-serve tools. For example, if youโ€™ve built a predictive model, instead of re-running it each time a colleague or client sends you new data, you can create a dashboard that lets them:

  • ๐Ÿ“ค Upload their own dataset (e.g., a CSV file)
  • ๐ŸŽ›๏ธ Choose relevant options or filters
  • ๐Ÿ“ˆ Automatically receive visualisations or predictions

This eliminates repetitive tasks and transforms your work into a scalable data product ๐Ÿ’ก

Typical features include:

  • ๐Ÿ“ File upload for user-supplied data
  • ๐Ÿ”„ Automated analysis and visualisation
  • ๐ŸŽš๏ธ Interactive filters or sliders
  • ๐Ÿ’พ Downloadable results or reports

Example scenarios:

  • A data scientist builds a customer churn prediction tool where sales teams can upload their customer data and instantly get risk scores
  • An environmental consultant creates a water quality assessment dashboard where clients upload their test results and receive automated compliance reports
  • A financial analyst develops a portfolio risk calculator where users input their holdings and get personalized risk assessments

โœจ Why This Matters

This approach improves efficiency, enhances the user experience, and makes your analysis reusable by othersโ€”on demand. Instead of being a bottleneck, you become an enabler, creating tools that empower others to explore data and gain insights independently ๐ŸŽฏ