The Excel based “dashboard” concept that I’ve developed for a few clients is one that allows department supervisors to quickly access and overview of the key elements of their programs.

The Excel spreadsheet has code in it that allows for direct refreshing of the data from the enterprise software database on SQL server.  The data and charts that are displayed are specific to what they need to monitor and aggregate data from multiple sources.  That data may be available on various reports in the enterprise system, but this tool pulls all they key pieces together in one place for a quick view of all key information.

By using a spreadsheet to access this information, the end-user can further analyze the data if they want.

The most common place that I’ve used this method is in connection with the Anasazi/Cerner Community Behavioral Health software package.  The spreadsheet links to Anasazi/Cerner and uses the logged in user information to check which units/subunits the user has access to and will limit the data that they can access to only what they can normally see in Anasazi/Cerner.

With the basic methodology of how this works completed, I’m able to do additional spreadsheet data extracts/dashboards in as little as a couple of hours – making it a very cost effective way of putting a fantastic management tool in the hands of supervisors and managers.