From the course: Learning Data Analytics Part 2: Extending and Applying Core Knowledge

What to do before going company wide

From the course: Learning Data Analytics Part 2: Extending and Applying Core Knowledge

What to do before going company wide

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- [Instructor] In this course, we have talked about ad hoc reporting, those one time or one off requests that come to your desk. However, there are times when you have reports or dashboards that will be consumed by the organization or by larger groups. There are some key things to take into account when you're getting ready to go live within your organization. You always want to identify your audience. Who's actually going to be using the dashboards or reports? Is it internal people in the organization, like employees or executives? Or is it external, like customers or potential clients? Also, be sensitive to the branding guidelines. Are there branding guidelines for externally-facing content? If you've never worked with the Marketing Department and you have no idea, here's your opportunity to explore this. Internally, you might have executives who request everything fit a certain style standard. For example, we support an organization that has requirements for everything that is around their brand. From their email signature to their font usage. We have a copy of those brand standards, and we follow it for the colors. Fonts, logos, and everything we produce for them. With permissions, this could get really complicated really quick, and it really almost should've been top of this list. Who actually gets to access this data? And more importantly, who doesn't? Whether a group has access to the files or the dashboard, or even the PowerPoint version, you must make sure that everywhere the output lives, that only the appropriate people have permissions. One way we support this particular effort is we have a SharePoint site that's dedicated to reporting. And we have the permissions set so that people only get into the areas in which they have permissions. It's an extra layer of permission, and it's worth it. But that's just one example. And again, you're controlled by the licenses that are given to everyone or not given to everyone in the organization. So let's talk about that. Every tool has licensing that controls what you can do with your published output or access to the files. For example, you might want to share a report with a person who only wants to view the work. But you have to ensure they have the right license to do that. If they don't, then you can share that report with them all day and get nowhere. You might want to leverage QR codes, but unless everyone has the minimum licensing requirement, it's a waste of time to provide that. You may not be in control of the licensing for your organization, that's typically handled by the IT Department and the other decision-makers. But you need to be able to communicate up front what constraints you face with the licensing that you do have. This will allow the decision-makers to make a decision on the types of licenses that you might need, or that your organization needs. Also, you will need to determine if any of the output needs to be emailed out, or if there's any other notification requirements. An example would be that we have a paginated report, and this gets emailed out every day to the sales team. Our notification is the fact that the email goes out with a report attached. But we also have a dashboard, that due to the limitations of the data, it causes us to have to refresh the data every morning, so we have to notify everyone that the dashboard is refreshed. Always consider the email and notification requirements of every report you build, and understand there's not a single answer every time. You'll have to address it on a case-by-case basis. Training guidance is so valuable, people don't naturally know how to use a dashboard to answer their own queries or questions. Be sure to spend a little time building some training guidance on how to get the most out of the dashboard. Minimum required training would be at least how to access the file dashboard or paginated report. Who is the file meant for? Who is it meant to support? And what is the best use of the file, dashboard, or report? I would also include any key definitions that might support the consumer's understanding of the information. Until you have this simple checklist memorized, or so that you don't have to, I would recommend creating a checklist that contains all of these main areas, and be sure to include it at the beginning of every discussion for an organization-wide report, and maybe even every ad hoc request.

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