Key performance indicators (KPIs) provide measures of performance that are important to an organization, department, or even an individual. They are often represented on dashboards, where several KPIs can be seen together. Formats include a wide variety of charts including pie charts, histograms, dials, gauges, and even maps.
KPI dashboard software varies considerably. General purpose dashboard software from suppliers such as Qlik and Tableau are potentially more powerful, but are generally used as part of a larger business intelligence initiative. Specialized KPI platforms such as Bilbeo can provide specific KPI functionality, and may be more suitable for some organizations.
There is nothing sacred about KPIs, they just need to cover the aspects of business operation that are important. Too many, and it is hard to get a clear picture, too few, and vital information will be overlooked.
Bilbeo
Bilbeo is perhaps the smartest KPI dashboard platform available.
- Cloud based service (on site options available) that predicts KPI performance and correlates KPIs to find leading indicators.
- API to access on-premises data sources, and alerts generated on KPI performance.
- KPIs rated from ‘Very Bad’ to ‘Excellent’ automatically, with drill down into individual KPIs.
- White labelling.
- Pricing based on size of data and number of users.
Bittle
Bittle good value online service.
- Ideal for the SME with white labelling option.
- Collaboration features and mobile access.
- Connectors to many database sources, spreadsheets, online apps.
- Graphics library includes donut, pie, histogram, 3D, bar, gauge, funnel, maps, radar, treemap etc.
- Free single user subscription up to $600/mo for large data volumes.
ClicData
ClicData easy to use but with sophisticated features
- Cloud based dashboard platform with easy to use interface.
- Sophisticated features such as conditional output, pivot tables and complex calculations.
- Wide range of charts including maps, bar, pie, tables, line, dials, gauges etc.
- Connectors for database, spreadsheets, social data, online apps, and support for SQL if needed.
- Free single user version through to the Enterprise at just $50 per month.
Cyfe
Cyfe is easy to use and extremely good value.
- Extensive support for internal and external data sources.
- Many graph and chart types including line, spline, area, area-spline, stacked area, column, … , pie, donut, list, funnel, tables – and so on.
- A top contender for people considering a social media monitoring dashboard.
- The whole environment is widget driven, and so it is very easy to connect with social sources such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter (many others too).
- A free account is offered for people with modest needs, or the Premium service offers pretty well unlimited everything for $19 per month.
Dundas Dashboards
Dundas Dashboard – high end sophisticated dashboarding.
- Extensive collaboration features allowing comments to be attached to data points.
- Support for OLAP processing and complex metrics.
- Support for enterprise databases and applications.
- Above average visualization capabilities and part of broader BI suite.
- Pricing model unknown.
Geckoboard
Geckoboard cloud service best for online data
- Online dashboards service with commonly used visuals and support for online and social data sources.
- Chart types include bar, bullet graph, funnel, dials, Highcharts charting library support, leaderboard, line, pie, maps and several others.
- Over 60 integrations with online apps and data sources, spreadsheet data, social sources.
- Custom widgets support push (data pushed to dashboard) and pull (data pulled by dashboard from datasource).
- Starts at $49/mo for single user with 2 dashboards, up to $399/mo for 15 users and 25 dashboards, plus more if needed.
iDashboards
iDashboards general cloud dashboard platform
- Cloud (or on-premises) dashboard platform with particularly attractive visuals.
- Data Integrator for blending data from multiple sources (databases, social, spreadsheet, web apps etc).
- Drag and drop interface and full drill down into data from dashboards.
- Good mobile support.
- Pricing unavailable.
Klipfolio
Klipfolio – very capable and reasonably priced.
- Sophisticated online dashboard service with good data handling
- Hundreds of connectors for database, spreadsheet, online apps, social data.
- Ability to combine data sources and create complex formulas.
- Dozens of chart types – dials, line, pie, maps, gauges, tables etc.
- Pricing starts at $20/mo one user, to thousands of users.
ProjectManager
ProjectManager.com – online project management software with a real-time dashboard
- Dashboard monitors project status, task status, team progress, timelines, cost, resource allocation and more
- Customizable, one-click reports can be easily exported and shared
- Import and export data seamlessly from MS Project, Excel and more
- Software includes project planning and scheduling with interactive Gantt charts, timesheets, resource management and team collaboration.
- $20 – $30 per user for monthly plans designed to fit any size team
Qlik Sense
Qlik Sense – sophisticated desktop and enterprise dashboards
- Very powerful desktop and enterprise dashboard and data visualization platform.
- Supports large number of data sources with an optional service for a large number of online data services.
- Associative engine makes combining data sources straight forward.
- Large number of chart types and can be extended if needed.
- Desktop version free with a free cloud dashboard sharing service. Enterprise edition requires server license.
Slemma
Slemma is a cloud BI and dashboard software that allows devs and non-devs alike to do ad hoc visual analysis against data. Slemma plugs in directly to the most popular databases (including XMLA data sources), cloud storage and cloud services, and allows to bypass the need for a warehouse. It is easy to create a dashboard by using intuitive drag-and-drop interface or writing and running SQLs to build charts.
With the dashboards created in Slemma, team and clients can access dashboards through the web. And they can slice and dice the data in real-time by dimensions and measures for their own needs. The platform also supports data transformation features like aggregation, calculations, filtering, sorting and ordering data.
A free version supports Excel and CSV files and integration with Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive. Paid subscriptions start at US$ 29 per month.
SimpleKPI
SimpleKPI – specifically targeted at KPI applications.
- Complete suite of KPI apps for dashboards, reporting, analytics, tracking.
- Extensive sharing and collaboration.
- Easy to use with pre-built templates.
- Supports most data sources and comes with a rich set of charts.
- £11/mo for a single user, £467 for 100 users and upward.
Tableau
Tableau – rich graphics, cloud or on premises.
- Particularly rich graphics with desktop, server and cloud editions.
- Sharing, mobile and collaboration features.
- Fast in-memory processing for most data sets.
- Complete data visualization and discovery platform.
- Pricing based on number of users – typically around $2000 per seat.