We are six members in the group. Here is the name of all members:
1. Prabhleen kaur Banga
2. Neetu Bhatia
3. Carnveer Rai
4. Sandeep Singh
5. Varinder Singh
6. Aabrose Singh

 1. What is a dashboard?

Dashboards often provide at-a-glance views of KPIs (key performance indicators) relevant to a particular objective or business process (e.g. sales, marketing, human resources, or production) The term dashboard originates from the automobile dashboard where drivers monitor the major functions at a glance via the instrument cluster. Dashboards give signs about a business letting the user know something is wrong or something is right. The corporate world has tried for years to come up with a solution that would tell them if their business needed maintenance or if the temperature of their business was running above normal. Dashboards typically are limited to show summaries, key trends, comparisons, and exceptions. There are four Key elements to a good dashboard:

1. Simple, communicates easily
2. Minimum distractions...it could cause confusion
3. Supports organized business with meaning and useful data
4. Applies human visual perception to visual presentation of information

In management information systems, a dashboard is

"An easy to read, often single page, real-time user interface, showing a graphical presentation of the current status (snapshot) and historical trends of an organization’s key performance indicators (KPIs) to enable instantaneous and informed decisions to be made at a glance.

     2.   What is the role of dashboards in business intelligence?

Some dashboards may be used completely stand-alone, but more typically they are integrated with—or deployed as part of—a larger business intelligence (BI) solution that serves a number of other performance management functions.

There are a few features stated above which determine dashboards' role in today's business intelligence solution.
But would be true to say that business intelligence cannot exist without dashboards? And - from the other point of view - would dashboards be useful without business intelligence?

Both these questions are inseparably connected, nonetheless some dependencies might be described. At first, business intelligence is dashboards' reason for being. It would be hard to find another sensible reason for dashboards to function if there weren't BI. On the other hand, if not the dashboards, business intelligence wouldn't play its role efficiently enough. Dashboards are required to make it "intelligent". Without them, we would be having a bunch of separate tools which wouldn't be likely to cooperate, these days.

Finally, is the role of dashboards common for all companies? No, it's not. Every company has own software implemented, therefore dashboard every time gets different tasks to cooperate. For some companies, dashboard might support planning, while for the general strategies another tool is used. All depends on managers, because there one thing is common for all. The thing is not how efficient a solution is but how efficiently a manager uses it, after all.

Role of dashboards in business intelligence is expected to grow in future. Vendors - and companies' IT departments as well - are working incessantly on improvements, therefore dashboards are expected to get better and better, and it's only a matter of time for so called ultimate dashboard to be developed. Up to now, today's dashboards support business intelligence quite efficiently, so the works on improvements aren't a priority, though

    3.  How can dashboards help with Big Data?

·       Large data set, after large data set, after large data set is available to the average business manager.  "Big data" has become the word of the day for many businesses.  CEO's, analysts, and managers receive a steady flow of raw data information related to their customers, their inbound support calls, their customer satisfaction levels, company market research surveys, finance information, etc.  In addition to these sources, companies also have a wealth of information available to them through online search, review sites, social media, forums, etc.

·       The shear volume of available data is staggering.  Can the average business do anything with this volume of data?  To be successful, you have to pay attention to it.  But how?  Data is only useful if you have a way of managing it and turning it into insightful information. 

·       Interactive data visualization techniques are the solution.  Discovery Research Group's Compass Vision product turns data into easily understandable business insights. And, CompassVision provides the data visualization solutions you need to understand all of that information in a way that is easily digested, easily understood, interactive, and capable of driving and monitoring your business decision making process.

·       CompassVision has the ability to dashboard any of the data streams that we analyze through our proprietary platform.  If you're interested in Focus Group analysis, social media, you're own industry, or even a market research tracking study, CompassVision can help you understand that data in quick and easy ways through market research dashboards.  Feel free to click on the dashboard to the left to get a better feel some of our dash boarding capabilities

   4.  How are dashboards useful in business?

      Business managers and owners use a number of different tools to track their progress and determine how well the business is performing. The business dashboard is one of these tools that provides a snapshot of most of the important numbers needed to conduct effective business analysis. Dashboards can be used in all levels of business management but are typically most important to higher level managers who need a quick glimpse at how the company is performing.

Function

The primary function of the dashboard used in business is similar to the function of a dashboard used in an automobile. Business dashboards provide various gauges that are readouts of how the business "engine" is performing. These gauges read what business analysts and managers call key performance indicators, or measurable numbers that are used to determine business success and failure. For instance, it is possible to track profitability by examining revenue forecasts and achievements during each quarter of the business year.

Tracking

The key performance indicators tracked by businesses depend upon the business itself and what its leaders consider important in terms of raw numbers. Some of the most useful key performance indicators that can be tracked include improvements or decline in sales numbers and total revenue, profitability by region or department, customer satisfaction ratings and even income statement analysis. Some dashboards provide the convenience of being able to customize the dashboard's components to meet the individual needs of each business