One of the new trends in our world of IT is the idea of a "single pane of glass".  This is would be where various folks would be able to get an idea of the health of their business by "looking over there" to see if anything was wrong or if all is OK.  That has always been a bit of a problem since each of the tools a business uses each has it's own user interface.  Fortunately, IBM has a tool that helps to integrate various tools that a business will use into one user interface.   So what five things should you know about DASH?

1. Who are the consumers of the data? 

First, one of the most important things to know is who are the consumers of the data?  There are three personas types who consume business data.  The first type is a "Service Consumer".  These are the users of operational support services or business support services.  Some examples include business managers, business analysts, subject matter experts (SME), customer support personnel, and security personnel

The second type is a "Service Provider".  These are the users or groups who provide and maintain operational support services or business support services.  Examples of these personas include operations managers, line-of-business (LOB) managers, and service providers. The third persona type is "Service Creator".  These are the folks who design and create the user interface services for consumers and providers.  They are the ones who are responsible for creating, maintaining and administrating user interface data sources.

2. What does each user persona group need to see?

The second thing to know is what does each user persona group need to see?  This is an exercise where each of the persona groups are interviewed during a whiteboard session.  The idea is to create a vision of what dashboards does the persona type need to start with.  These exercises are best done on a "whiteboard" where diagrams are created with simple phrases that explain the intent of each view.  There are also arrows drawn to show where the dashboard interactivites are wanted.  Figure 1 illustrates an example of the information that could be gathered during the session:

3. What data would each dashboard created for each user persona include?

The third thing to know is what data would each dashboard created for each user persona include?  This is where the following information is gathered:

• What is the data source?  Is it an actual product, an RDBMS, a spreadsheet, a web service, or something else?  Also, what credentials are required for accessing the data?
• Does the data need to be refined?  Do all the data elements need to be seen or just a subset?  If just a subset is required, what type of data filter is required?
• What links are needed?  For the views on the receiving end of each of the arrows in the dashboard diagram, what is the query in the context of the item selected on the source side of the arrow?

This type of information is what is needed to make sure that the correct widgets are used in DASH when creating the dashboard.  An example would be gathering the health of an application that uses an RDBMS and runs on Windows.  The dashboard needed might need to know a) what customer complaint tickets have been opened, b) what is the RDBMS health, and c) what is the Windows OS health.  Those are three different sources of data and the DASH tool is able to be configured to collect data from all three sources and display it onto one dashboard.

4. Where does the data come from?

The fourth thing to know is where does the data come from?  Since the DASH tool can be configured to collect data from different sources, it important to understand where each of the data sets required for the dashboard comes from.  In the above example, the customer complaint tickets may come from a tool like ServiceNow.  The RDBMS health might come from the IBM APM Database Monitoring tool and the Windows OS health might come from the MS SCOM tool.  The DASH tool provides instructions on what information is needed from each tool and the configuration steps required for DASH to bring in each dataset and display it in the dashboard. 
 

5. How much lead time is required prior ro dashboard delivery? 

The fifth think to know is how much lead time is required prior ro dashboard delivery?  This is more of a question for the executive management or the LOB management team.  The idea is to understand when the dashboard is expected to be functional so that proper activity planning can be done.  Perhaps the best illustration of this point is the 5P idea that was created during the development of the Apollo Space Program.  That idea is: Perfect Planning Prevents Poor Performance!

So these five points should help you to make the dashboards that will make your business successful using the DASH dashboard tool.  Good luck and if you need any help, call us!  We want you to succeed!