Creating Dashboards

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

  • Create dashboards
  • Enable the release periods feature in dashboards
  • Identify the various types of widgets

Dashboards

Dashboards are an easy and intuitive way to communicate compensation results and other information to payees, giving them access to the information that matters to them the most.

The compensation administrator creates and maintains various dashboards using the Dashboards page in the Incentive Management Portal. Dashboards can be created for all payees who share a plan, or all payees who share a title. In addition, a global dashboard can be shared among all payees.

To allow a user to create and manage dashboards, add the user to a role with the Administration - Dashboards permission.

The following image shows a dashboard displaying the results for Terry Callahan for the first 6 months of 2023.

Dashboards are created using widgets. A widget is a window that contains a single piece of data for display in a dashboard. Examples of widgets in the image above are My Profile, Product Sales Revenue, and Team Ranking.

Configuring Dashboards

The Administrator can personalize the Dashboard settings within the Global Settings workspace on the Sales Performance Home page. 

Dashboards are updated automatically when Compensate and Pay is run. However, two features allow you to control the release of data to the payees.

Enable released periods allows you to manually release periods in the Dashboard. If this feature is enabled, payees can view the dashboards for the released periods only, and dashboards aren't updated until you release them. For example, let’s say you run Compensate and Pay daily, but you don’t want your payees to see an updated dashboard until the 15th of the month. You can release periods for all data, or release periods based on Processing Units and Calendars.

If needed, you can block specific positions or position groups when releasing a period. This is helpful if you're having trouble with the results of only one individual.

Show only released periods matching by positions date range  controls the display of the release periods based on the release period assigned to a payee. If this is enabled, payees will see Dashboards only for the periods for which they are assigned. The currently selected position displays only the released periods for that position.

If Use Approved Calculated Data Only is enabled, a new dataset is created that can be leveraged in dashboards as "approved" data. Administrators can control which data is pushed into the dataset if you need more granular control over the release of data. If this feature is enabled, calculated data will be displayed only after you have also run the Approve Calculated Data pipeline task. The following image shows how to use the Pipeline to approve calculated data.

Key facts regarding dashboards:

  • A dashboard can be ‘previewed’ by selecting a payee from the list.
  • Period selector can be set to be a Period Name or Date Range in Global Settings in the Sales Performance Home page.
  • A Dashboard can have an Effective Date range.
  • Dashboards have a View Date, which can be set to a Past date or Future date.
  • Dashboards support payees who hold multiple positions.
  • Dashboards can be created for Custom Calendars.

Widgets

As we saw earlier, dashboards are made up of Widgets. A Widget is a window that displays results or other plan data. They are very easy to configure in the user interface. You can use up to eight widgets per Dashboard. Most widgets are optimized to display payee data, but two widgets display data specifically for managers.

Payee widgets include:

  • Payee Profile: displays the payee information such as name, base salary, and manager name.
  • Single Performance Metric: displays a single metric, such as the payee’s measurement for the quarter.
  • Leaderboard: allows participants to see where they fall within a ranking of their peers.
  • Attainment: displays the payee’s attainment of a specific target, shown as a percent.
  • Payment: displays the payee payment information.
  • Aggregate: aggregates data by multiple attributes.
  • Personal Modeler: allows payees to estimate their potential payment.
  • Table: displays tabular data on top of the Payee results.
  • Quota attainment: displays performance metrics alongside a quota.

Manager widgets include:

  • Manager Rank: displays and ranks subordinates by a defined data type.
  • My Team: displays a list of subordinates with the capability to view any of their dashboards.

To learn more about various types of widgets, see the following videos:

Creating the Dashboard and Adding Widgets

The steps to create a dashboard are:

  • Decide on the dashboard audience.
  • Decide what type of information you would like payees to see on their dashboard
  • Create the dashboard using the available widgets using the Dashboard workspace
  • Preview the dashboard using several payees as examples
  • Publish the dashboard

Exercise: Create a Dashboard

Business Example

In this exercise, you will create a dashboard to display compensation results to the sales reps.

Steps

  1. Open the Incentive Management Portal using the application picker in the upper right.

  2. From the navigator on the left, select Dashboards.

  3. Select By Title.

  4. Next to the Sales Representative title, click the plus (+) icon under the Actions column.

  5. Enter the name Product Sales Rep Dashboard.

  6. Leave the Effective From and Effective To dates blank.

    Note

    The dashboard must have at least one widget before it can be saved.

  7. Add a Payee and Position Information  widget. 

    1. In the list of Payee Widgets, select the icon for Display Payee and Position Information.

    2. For the Widget Title, enter My Profile.

      Note

      This widget includes a field called Position. Target Compensation that we will not need to display. Instead, we will remove this field and add Participant. Sales Status in its place.

    3. Remove the Position.Target Compensation. 

    4. Select Add Field.

    5. Select Participant.GA1:Sales Status.

    6. In the Custom Label field, type Sales Status.

  8. Add a widget to display the payee’s total sales revenue, using the Measurement.

    1. On the Widgets toolbar, select the icon Display, a performance metric value.

    2. Enter the name My Total Sales Revenue.

    3. Set the Performance metric Type to Measurement.

    4. In the Measurement field, select My Total Sales Revenue.

    5. In the Field, select Value.

    6. Select Apply Changes.

      Note

      Let’s move this new widget so it appears to the right of the first one.

  9. Using the widget header as shown, select and drag the new widget to the right of the My Profile widget.

  10. To save the new dashboard, select Create.

Downloading Dashboard Images

Payees viewing their dashboards can download chart images to PDF, JPG, PNG and SVG formats by selecting the menu in the upper right corner of the widget.

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