Hi ,
To add to what Luke has posted , my comments would be :
1. If you have already designed your dashboard , then ignore this , since all of my comments are relevant only if you are going to design a dashboard.
If your dashboard is completed , how are you going to implement any suggestions ?
2. Before designing a dashboard , sit down and plan all that will need to be done in order to present the desired information on the dashboard ; ask questions , either of yourself , or to the users who will be owning the dashboard.
Will it be for viewing only , or for printing only or for both ? If it for viewing only , interactivity is important , both for user-friendliness and for making the best use of precious screen space. If it is for printing only , the layout and fonts / font sizes are important.
You talk of 1000+ agents ; does it really mean that the dashboard will be used to monitor the performance of every one of these 1000+ agents ? Faced with such volume of data , you should be looking at a hierarchy of dashboards , where you can progressively go to a finer and finer level of detail , starting with a broad overview of the best and worst performing agents , along with other categories of differentiation such as regions , products , clients ,...
Once the broad design is finalized , look at what will be needed for the outputs - will the data need to be sorted , will any unique lists be required , any drop-down validation lists to be created ,... If all of these requirements are known , decisions can be taken on how to optimize these outputs , either by using helper columns , pivot tables , VBA ,... Always keep in mind that future needs may arise ; keep
Once all of this is put down on paper , the real job of implementing can be started.
Narayan
