Templates are also utilized by the majority of people to display data. They are used to explore it by advanced users.

The business reporting standard over the years was the fixed infographic, a very pretty PDF or PowerPoint slide that would have passed with honor in a boardroom, but would fail miserably when someone inquired. What is causing that trend? You would scramble and work out a second dashboard, or refresh a spreadsheet, or promise to come back with the information.

That era is ending. Hello Living Data Visualization Templates Era: progressive disclosure dashboards that transform passive audiences into active explorers. Learn more on onenote digital planner before using it in your personal and professional space.

Understand the concept of new templates

The paradigm change is not complex but radical. The traditional templates perceive data as a completed product. Living templates perceive data as a conversation.

This will be driven by the Progressive Disclosure Dashboard. These templates do not confuse a user with all the charts and tables immediately, but they begin with a big picture: key performance indicators (KPIs), key trends, and headline numbers.

Once a user notices something of interest, he/she clicks. Even clicking on Annual Revenue does not open a new report; it drills down dynamically and displays Sales by City, Performance by Rep, or Quarterly Trends on the same page.

This method will not impose a cognitive burden on the user. An executive has the big picture. A critic investigates the particulars. One template serves both.

Check out the advanced features

The point where it becomes really strong is in the combination with the contemporary business intelligence (BI) tools. Such apps as Tableau or Power BI have essentially redefined what a template can be.

The templates we live with today are no longer merely the pro forma; it is a living document. The template developed in Power BI can be directly integrated into a PowerPoint or a SharePoint page. However, in contrast to a screenshot, the embedded image remains attached to your database. Start using Kindle scribe templatesto manage your daily affairs.

How it works in practice:

a.  A project manager opens a weekly status deck at the beginning of the week on Monday.

b.  The in-built "Project Burn Rate" chart does not show the data that was in the past week; it is a live draw on the Jira or Asana database.

c.  The data is updated, and the slide is updated. No copy-pasting by hand, no version nightmare.

This transforms the presentation template into a window. Executives are no longer asking the question, When did we pull this data? since they have faith in the author.

How important are these templates?

1.  For Executives:

You can see the big picture perspective, and at the same time, you can have the red-flagged metrics at a glance and instantly.

You do not spend much time in back-to-back follow-up meetings and spend more time making decisions.

2.  For Data Analysts:

You are no longer the report janitor, who manually updates decks every Friday.

You take some time to create a single powerful interactive template rather than 20 stagnant copies of the same report.

3.  For Project Managers:

Stakeholders can self-serve. When a team member would like to understand the reason behind the slipping of a milestone, he/she can drill down into the task-level data without disrupting your workflow.

Real-time syncing implies that your status will be correct all the time.

Tips on building a living template

When you are willing to go beyond stagnant, you may use the following three principles:

1.  Begin with a Hierarchy

Build your template in layers. Layer 1 is high-level KPIs. Level 2 is category breakdowns. Granular transaction or task-level data is in layer 3. It is up to the user to decide the depth of the dive.

2.  Drill-Downs Prodigal, Tooltips Sparsely

Drill-downs serve the purpose of exploration, whereas tooltips are helpful in definition. They act as bringers of agency without overcrowding the interface.

3.  Have a Single Source of Truth

If not, a living template is like a fish out of water. Make sure you are pulling based on a clean, controlled set of data. Unless the users can trust the data, they will not make use of the interactivity.

The emergence of living data visualization templates is a transition to exploration rather than reporting. The answer to, What happened? is given by the use of static templates. Living templates enable end users to say, Why did it happen, and what happens next?

The tool that arouses curiosity will always outperform the one that only presents itself to executives, analysts, and project managers. Stop showing your data. Let your audience explore it.