10 Dashboard Templates and Effective Indicators for Tracking KPI’s

Written by ana | Published 2021/02/05
Tech Story Tags: dashboard | admin-dashboard | webdevelopment | frontend | front-end-development | charts | visualization | key-performance-indicators

TLDR Key Performance Indicators are a modern instrument to make a system (a business, for example) work effectively. KPI's show how successful the business is, or how professional the employee is. Developers need to be aware of what instruments they should include in the app so the users will be able to use KPI’s easily and effectively. The most challenging part of such an app is building a dashboard that displays all necessary KPIs on a single screen. We have explored the Internet, analyzed different types of tools to represent KPI, found great dashboards and made two lists.via the TL;DR App

KPI's or Key Performance Indicators are a modern instrument to make a system (a business, for example) work effectively. KPI's show how successful the business is, or how professional the employee is.
It works with the help of measurable values, that are intended to show the success of achieving your strategic goals. KPIs are measurable indicators that you should track, calculate, analyze, and represent. 
If you read this article, it means that you want to find or build an app to help you in all operations above. But before we list the top dashboard templates for tracking KPIs, it’s essential to understand how exactly to choose a set of indicators that boost the growth of a business.
For KPI's to be useful, they should be relevant to a business. That is crucial not only for entrepreneurs who try to improve their businesses but also for the developers of the software for tracking KPIs.
Why? 
Developers need to be aware of what instruments they should include in the app so the users will be able to use KPI’s easily and effectively. Since there are much more than a handful of articles and approaches on how to find the right performance indicators, what KPI's to choose, how to track them, development of a quality web application can be complicated. 
However, from our point of view, the most challenging part of such an app is building a dashboard that displays all necessary KPI's on a single screen. We have explored the Internet, analyzed different types of tools to represent KPI's, found great dashboards, and made two lists:
  1. one consists of the charts and instruments you should definitely include in your future app,
  2. the other is top dashboards we found that contain elements from the first top.
Let’s start from the first list.  
Enjoy reading!  

What Indicators Do We Need to Build an Effective Dashboard for KPI's?

Absolute Numerical Values and Percentage (in absolute amount)
With the help of percentage, you can make it more informative by adding the comparison of KPI with the previous periods.
Non-Linear Chart
One of the core charts.
Bar Chart
Another core element to display KPI's.
Stacked Bar Graphs
It’s a more complex instrument, but more informative respectively.
Progress Bars
Can be confused with a horizontal bar chart. The main difference: a horizontal bar chart is used to compare the values in several categories, while a progress bar is supposed to show the progress in a single category.
Pie Charts
Donut Chart
You can replace pie charts with a donut chart, the meaning is the same.
Gauge Chart
This chart helps users to track their progress towards achieving goals. It’s interchangeable with a progress bar. 
Pictograms
Instead of using an axis with numbers, it uses pictures to represent a relative or an absolute number of items.
Process Behavior Chart
Especially valuable for financial KPI's. The mainline shows measurement over time or categories, while two red lines are control limits that shouldn’t be surpassed.
Combined Bar and Line Graph
Some Additional Tools:
These tools are also essential for building a dashboard for tracking KPI: calendar,
  • dropdowns,
  • checkboxes,
  • input fields.
The option to create and download a report will also be helpful.

The Top Dashboards for Tracking KPI's:

Sing App Admin Dashboard

If you look through a huge number of dashboard templates and don’t find one that you need, you should take a look at Sing app. Sing is a premium admin dashboard template that offers all necessary opportunities to turn data into easy to understand graphs and charts. Besides all charts and functions listed above, with Sing, you get such options as downloading graphs in SVG and PNG format, animated and interactive pointer that highlights the point where the cursor is placed, and change the period for values calculation inside the frame with the graph!

Retail Dashboard from Simple KPI

That is a dashboard focused on the retail trade sphere. It already contains relevant KPI's and Metrics for that sector, so you need just to download it and use it. Since it’s an opinioned dashboard you will not get a great customization option. If you are a retailer or trader you should try that dashboard to track the performance when selling goods or services.

Light Blue React Node.js

It is a React Admin dashboard template with Node.JS backend. The template is more suited for KPI's that reflect goals in web app traffic analysis, revenue and current balance tracking, and sales management. However, Light Blue contains a lot of ready-to-use working components and charts to build a necessary dashboard. It’s very easy to customize and implement, both beginners in React and professional developers can benefit from that template and get a track on KPIs, metrics, and business data.

Limitless Dashboard

Limitless is a powerful admin template and a best-seller on ThemeForest. It goes with a modern business KPI dashboard that simplifies the processes of monitoring, analyzing, and generating insights. With the help of that dashboard, you can easily monitor the progress of growing sales or traffic and adjust the sales strategy according to customer behavior. Furthermore, the dashboard contains a live update function to keep you abreast of the latest changes.

Cork Admin Dashboard

That is an awesome bootstrap-based dashboard template that follows the best design and programming principles.  The template provides you with more than 10 layout options and Laravel Version of the extremely rare dashboard. Several pages with charts and two dashboards with different metrics ensure you have the basic elements to build a great dashboard for tracking KPI.

Paper Admin Template

This template fits you if you are looking for a concrete solution since Paper goes with eleven dashboards in the package! They all are unnamed so it will take time to look through them, but that time will be less than time for building your dashboard. Every dashboard provides a simple single-screen view of data and allows sharing it with your collages.

Pick Admin Dashboard Template

Pick is a modern and stylish solution for the IT industry. It’s a multipurpose dashboard that helps you to gain full control over the performance.

Able Pro Admin Dashboard

If you believe that the most qualified products are the most rated products, take a look at Able pro. Able pro is a best-rated bootstrap admin template on Themeforest. The human eye captures information within the graph blazingly fast! With that dashboard, you can go much deeper into the understanding of KPIs and make the decision-making process much easier.

Architect UI Admin Template

Those who download Architect UI make the right choice. That template created with hundreds of build-in elements and components, and three blocks of charts. The modular frontend architecture makes dashboard customization fast and easy, while animated graphs provide insights about KPI's.

Flatlogic One Admin Dashboard Template

Flatlogic one is a one-size-fits-all solution for any type of dashboard. It is a premium bootstrap admin dashboard template that has been released recently in July 2020. It goes with two developed dashboards: analytics and visits. But it also offers four additional pages with smoothly animated charts for any taste and needs. The dashboard is flexible and highly customizable, so you easily get the benefit from that template.
Thanks for reading.

Written by ana | Head of PR at Flatlogic Templates (flatlogic.com)
Published by HackerNoon on 2021/02/05