You've got a dashboard. Maybe you paid $20k for it, or maybe you're paying $200/month for some SaaS tool. It's got graphs and charts and numbers that update in real-time.

It looks impressive in meetings. But honestly? Nobody actually uses it.

Let's talk about why and fix it.

The dashboard that nobody opens

Here's what happens at most companies:

Month 1: New dashboard launches. Everyone's excited. "Look at all this data!"

Month 2: People check it once a week. "Oh yeah, we have that dashboard thing."

Month 3: Someone asks a question in a meeting. Everyone opens the dashboard. Takes 5 minutes to find the answer. Someone gives up and just asks the accountant instead.

Month 6: The dashboard login is buried in someone's bookmarks. It quietly collects dust.

Sound familiar?

Why dashboards fail

It shows everything (which means it shows nothing)

Your dashboard has 47 different metrics on it. Revenue, expenses, customer count, website visitors, social media followers, inventory levels, support tickets, employee hours...

It's like walking into a library and someone hands you 47 books and says "all the information you need is in here somewhere!"

That's not helpful. That's overwhelming.

The fix: Your dashboard should show 5-7 numbers max. The ones that actually matter to decisions you make every week. Everything else is noise.

It answers questions nobody asked

Most dashboards show what's easy to measure, not what's useful to know.

"Website visitors this month: 5,247"

Okay, so what? Is that good? Should I do something about it? What am I supposed to learn from this number?

Compare that to: "Website visitors up 23% since you started the blog. The SEO is working."

Now that's useful. That tells you what's happening and why.

The fix: Start with decisions you actually make. Work backwards to figure out what data helps those decisions. Build the dashboard around that.

It's not connected to action

You look at the dashboard. You see a number. Then what?

If the answer is "nothing, I just look at it," your dashboard is useless.

The fix: Every metric should have a clear action tied to it. "If this number drops below X, we need to do Y."

It's hard to understand

Your dashboard is full of terms like "conversion rate," "churn," "CAC," and "LTV." You know what these mean because you looked them up once. Your team doesn't.

So they ignore the dashboard because it feels like reading a foreign language.

The fix: Use plain English. "New customers this month" instead of "MoM acquisition rate." Everyone should understand it immediately.

Nobody's responsible for it

Who's supposed to check the dashboard? Everyone? That means nobody.

The fix: One person owns each metric. If "customer satisfaction" drops, Sarah needs to know and do something about it. If it's everyone's job, it's nobody's job.

What a good dashboard looks like

Let me show you a before and after from a real client.

Before: The monster dashboard

They had one massive dashboard with:

Revenue (last 7 days, last 30 days, last quarter, year-over-year)
Expenses (same breakdowns)
Profit margins (you get the idea)
Customer count
Average order value
Website traffic
Email open rates
Social media engagement
Inventory levels for 12 product categories
Employee hours worked
Support ticket volume
Customer satisfaction scores

It was beautiful. It was comprehensive. Nobody looked at it because it was exhausting.

After: Three simple dashboards

Dashboard 1: For the owner (checked daily)

Cash in bank
Yesterday's revenue
Outstanding invoices
This month vs last month (revenue)

That's it. Four numbers. Takes 30 seconds to check. He actually checks it every morning now.

Dashboard 2: For the marketing manager (checked weekly)

New customers this week
Where they came from (Google, social, referrals)
Cost per customer
Which marketing campaigns are working

Four numbers again. Now she knows what's working and can adjust the marketing budget.

Dashboard 3: For the operations team (checked weekly)

Orders pending
Products running low on stock
Average delivery time
Customer complaints this week

Same idea. Just what they need to do their jobs.

The questions your dashboard should answer

Forget about tracking everything. Focus on the questions you actually ask every week:

For business owners:

Are we making money this month?
Do we have enough cash to pay bills?
Are we growing or shrinking?
What should I worry about?

For sales teams:

How many new leads this week?
How many are we closing?
Who needs follow-up today?
What's our pipeline for next month?

For operations:

What's urgent right now?
What might become urgent soon?
Are we on track for our deadlines?
Where are the bottlenecks?

Build your dashboard to answer YOUR questions. Not someone else's idea of what you should care about.

How to build a dashboard people actually use

Step 1: Write down decisions you make regularly

"Should we hire another person?" "Should we increase our marketing budget?" "Which products should we order more of?" "Is our new feature actually getting used?"

Step 2: Figure out what data helps those decisions

For "should we hire another person?":

Current team workload
Revenue per employee
Number of projects in pipeline

For "should we increase marketing budget?":

Cost per customer
Customer lifetime value
Which channels are working

Step 3: Make it visual and simple

Graphs are better than tables of numbers. Colors help (green = good, red = needs attention).

But don't go crazy with fancy animations and 3D charts. Simple bar graphs and line charts work fine.

Step 4: Set it as someone's homepage

If checking the dashboard requires remembering a URL and logging in, it won't happen. Make it automatic.

Set it as the start page in their browser, or have it display on a screen in the office, or send it in an email every morning.

Step 5: Review and adjust monthly

After a month, ask: "Did we actually use this? Did it help make any decisions?"

If a metric hasn't been useful, remove it. If you find yourself constantly asking for data that's not there, add it.

Real story from a property management company

We built them a dashboard last year. They manage 200+ properties around Singapore.

What they asked for: Everything. Occupancy rates, maintenance requests, rental income, tenant demographics, property values, market trends, literally everything.

What we gave them: A conversation about what they actually DO every week.

Turns out, the owner looks at three things every Monday:

Which properties are empty (he needs to fill them)
Which tenants are late on rent (he needs to chase them)
How much cash came in last week (he needs to pay his bills)

We built a dead-simple dashboard with those three things prominently displayed. Everything else is still there, but in a secondary page they can check when needed.

Now he actually opens it every Monday. Before, he'd log in maybe twice a month to pull a report when someone asked for it.

Warning signs your dashboard is useless

Nobody opens it without being reminded. If people need calendar reminders to check the dashboard, it's not valuable enough.

People still ask for data that's in the dashboard. If they're emailing you questions that the dashboard answers, it means they can't find the answer easily enough.

It takes more than 10 seconds to find a specific number. Your dashboard should be scannable. Eyes should find the important stuff immediately.

The data is old. If your "real-time dashboard" shows data from last week, people will stop trusting it.

Nobody can explain what to do if a metric goes red. Pretty colors mean nothing if they don't lead to action.

Just start simple

You don't need a fancy custom dashboard with AI and machine learning and predictive analytics. Not at first, anyway.

Start with a spreadsheet. Seriously. Google Sheets can make decent dashboards.

Track 3-5 numbers that matter. Update them weekly. Share them with your team.

Do that for three months. If you're still checking it weekly and making decisions based on it, THEN invest in something fancier.

If you're not, you just saved yourself $20k by learning your business doesn't actually need a dashboard. Maybe you just need a weekly report, or a monthly meeting, or better communication.

When you're ready for a real dashboard

If you've outgrown spreadsheets and you need something that:

Pulls data automatically from multiple sources
Updates in real-time
Works on your phone
Lets different team members see different views

That's when custom dashboard development makes sense.

But go in with clarity. Know exactly what questions it should answer. Know exactly who will use it and how often. Know what actions connect to what metrics.

Otherwise you're just building an expensive thing that nobody will use.

Let's talk if you want help figuring out what your dashboard should actually show. Or if you have one that's not working and you want to fix it.

Common reasons: shows too many metrics (overwhelming), answers questions nobody asked, not connected to specific actions, uses confusing terminology, or nobody's responsible for checking it. Dashboards fail when they show everything (which means they show nothing useful) or measure what's easy instead of what's useful.

Focus on 5-7 numbers that matter, not 47.

What makes a good business dashboard?

Good dashboards show 5-7 key metrics maximum, answer specific questions you actually ask every week, have clear actions tied to each metric ("if X drops below Y, do Z"), use plain English instead of jargon, and assign one person responsible for each metric. Takes 30 seconds to scan and immediately shows what needs attention.

Simple, scannable, and actionable beats comprehensive.

How many metrics should be on a dashboard?

5-7 numbers maximum per dashboard. More than that becomes overwhelming and nothing stands out. If you need to track more, create separate dashboards for different people (owner dashboard, marketing dashboard, operations dashboard) instead of one monster dashboard nobody uses.

One focused dashboard beats one overwhelming dashboard.

Should I start with a custom dashboard or spreadsheet?

Start with Google Sheets. Track 3-5 numbers that matter, update them weekly, share with your team. Do that for three months. If you're still checking it weekly and making decisions based on it, THEN invest in custom dashboard. If not, you just saved $20k by learning you don't need one yet.

Prove it works simply before investing big.

How do I know if my dashboard is actually useful?

Useful dashboards get opened daily/weekly without reminders, people can find specific numbers in under 10 seconds, data is current (not old), everyone can explain what action to take if a metric goes red, and people make actual decisions based on it. If people still email you for data that's in the dashboard, it's not useful enough.

Usage and decision-making prove usefulness.

What questions should a business dashboard answer?

Start with decisions you actually make regularly, then work backwards to find data that helps those decisions. Business owners need: are we making money this month, do we have enough cash, are we growing, what should I worry about. Sales teams need: leads this week, closing rate, who needs follow-up, next month's pipeline.

Build around real decisions, not generic metrics.

When should I invest in a custom dashboard?

Invest in custom dashboard when you've outgrown spreadsheets and need automatic data pulling from multiple sources, real-time updates, mobile access, and different views for different team members. But only if you already know exactly what questions it should answer and who will use it. Otherwise you're building an expensive thing nobody will use.

Prove the need with spreadsheets first.

About &7: We build custom dashboards for Singapore businesses, but only after we've figured out what you actually need to see. Sometimes that's a complex system. Sometimes that's a simple weekly report. We'll tell you which.

Why Your Business Dashboard Is Useless (And How to Fix It)