Maven Northwind Challenge - Flavorful Insights: Discovering Northwind's Q2 2015 Story

The goal of the project:

... building a top-level KPI dashboard for the executive team. The dashboard should be built to evolve and accommodate new data over time, but you've been encouraged by your manager to have insights & recommendations ready to share with the VPs.

Idea and execution:

Based on the data provided, we are in the second quarter of 2015.

To make the project more business-like, I decided to add one table with a sales forecast to the data model, set a sales target and focus on the issues of the current quarter, as most companies do.

In my scenario the VP of Sales wants to know how the sales department performed this quarter. He wants to be able to see, at any given time, how the total sales for the current quarter compare to previous quarters. He wants to track goal attainment and monitor changes in the sales forecast. The VP needs to have an overview of the entire business and the ability to filter down to individual products or regions.

So the main questions that the dashboard should address are:

• How is our performance in this quarter?
• How does this quarter compare to the previous quarter and the same quarter last year?
• Are we on track to surpass the previous quarter?
• Are we on track to achieve our goal?
• What was the initial sales forecast for the quarter, and how has it been updated throughout the quarter?

The dashboard is divided into four distinct blocks, each telling a little story. These blocks serve as individual chapters, while collectively forming a comprehensive narrative of the company's. From sales trends to product performance, key customers to shipping costs, every essential aspect is covered, empowering stakeholders to grasp the big picture.

But the story doesn't end there. The dashboard goes beyond static displays by incorporating toggles that allow users to dynamically change the context of the story. Seamlessly switch between different dimensions allows us to present our history in different ways.

For example, we can compare our sales with previous quarters

...or monitor how the goal is being achieved

...or see how the sales forecast is changing.

In addition, by adding sales by countries, customers, products and employees, or freight costs, we can also change the context of our story.

When moving to the next quarter, it will be enough to reduce a few calculations and again dive into the data research of the next quarter;)