The datapine Blog
News, Insights and Advice for Getting your Data in Shape

SaaS Dashboard & Metrics Examples For Modern Business Management Practices

SaaS dashboard by datapine

In the Age of Information, digital technologies have evolved to such an extent that a wealth of tools, applications, and platforms exists to enhance the way businesses operate in a number of areas.

Software-as-a-service (SaaS) has blossomed in the last five years, and the public SaaS market is expected to grow exponentially this year and beyond.

There’s no doubt that the SaaS market has a bright and prosperous future, but with fresh innovations emerging all the time, the competition has never been more fierce.

If you’re part of a growing SaaS company and are looking to accelerate your success, leveraging the power of data is the way to gain a real competitive edge. That’s where SaaS dashboards enter the fold.

These are powerful business intelligence tools that offer a host of benefits for ambitious tech businesses. Here, we’ll explore the real-world benefits of SaaS technology and dashboards, look at SaaS dashboard templates in more detail, glance at examples, and outline the importance of using SaaS business intelligence to develop your business.

Let’s get started.

What Is A SaaS Dashboard?

An executive dashboard example visualizing the number of paying customers, ARPU, CAC, CLTV, and MRR over the course of a month.

A SaaS dashboard is a tool that contains key SaaS metrics such as MRR, ARPU, CLTV, etc. With insights into sales, marketing, finances, and more, SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) businesses can develop a complete overview of their performance, and turn it into profit.

As mentioned, SaaS enterprises operate in an incredibly competitive market. By working with relevant SaaS KPIs, these dashboards offer a user-friendly means of spotting data-driven trends, identifying strengths and weaknesses, making informed decisions, and ultimately – steering businesses toward a bright, prosperous, and profitable future.

To learn more about SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) in general, we suggest you read our article on the top 12 SaaS trends.

Your Chance: Want to build your own SaaS dashboard with a few clicks?
Try our professional dashboard software for 14 days, completely free!

Why Do You Need A SaaS Dashboard?

Now that we’ve looked into a definition, it’s time to talk about why you need one for your business. It’s clear that SaaS dashboards are invaluable to Software-as-a-Service businesses – like yours – looking to grow their empire and get an all-important edge on the competition. Whether you need to develop an IT report or tackle deeper into the financial analytics side of the business, a dashboard will prove its worth when you see all your data on a clean, interactive screen.

To put this notion into a  living, breathing real-world perspective, here are five definitive reasons why your business should harness the unrivaled power of SaaS dashboard templates, technologies, and innovations.

1) Data management

As a SaaS business, you will need to analyze colossal streams of data relating to several key functions and activities.

While once upon a time, drilling down into various data sources was laborious and fragmented, using a SaaS KPI dashboard now enables you to work with KPIs that serve up insights that are relevant to your business. Moreover, these tools serve all of your data in one centralized space, you don’t need to waste time logging into different applications or platforms to source the insights you need.

Data quality, speed, and consistency in one neat package.

2) Vision

A SaaS metrics dashboard improves data management, but it also makes understanding your data and sharing your discoveries with key people within and outside your organization swift and simple by offering digestible dashboard visualizations of vital insights or metrics.

A dashboard creator is a powerful tool for any modern Software-as-a-Service business. SaaS dashboard software is based on providing accessible visual representations of your most important information, empowering you to develop powerful, accurate strategies through data visualization that will benefit your business significantly.

3) Cohesion

SaaS dashboard examples are tailored and easy to navigate. Because they offer 24/7 access across a multitude of platforms, it’s possible to make your whole organization more cohesive through increased access to information.

Companies that fail to operate cohesively often stunt their growth and success, but if everyone within the organization can get the most from the data available to them, the business will thrive – a clear case for the use of SaaS dashboards.

4) Growth

Greater vision means greater growth. By gaining the ability to identify both historical and real-time trends in your data through an effective DSS system, you’ll be able to make improvements in all major areas of the business. Ultimately, this will result in continual growth.

If you can capitalize on your strengths and minimize your weaknesses, you’ll be able to get ahead of the pack while scaling steadily over time. SaaS dashboard software is the very vessel for you to achieve or even exceed your goals on a consistent basis.

5) Communication & collaboration

In SaaS ventures, internal collaboration (or cooperation) is critical if you want your business to scale and evolve over time.

An effective dashboard tool will empower any budding Software-as-a-Service business with the metrics and functionality required for enhanced communication and collaboration.

By empowering everyone in the business with data-driven visualizations and interactive SaaS KPIs, everyone will be able to perform better while sharing discoveries or ideas that will benefit cross-departmental collaboration - and ultimately, the success of the business.

Your Chance: Want to build your own SaaS dashboard with a few clicks?
Try our professional dashboard software for 14 days, completely free!

Our Top SaaS Dashboard Examples

SaaS dashboards offer a wealth of business-enhancing benefits, and now that you understand them on a deeper, more practical level, it’s time to explore real-world examples.

Our executive SaaS dashboard template is interactive, and intuitive, and boasts a cohesive mix of KPIs that aid the successful management of all key Software-as-a-Service departments, functions, and processes.

Let’s explore this innovative dashboard in more detail.

a) SaaS management dashboard

Our most valuable of SaaS dashboard examples are from our management dashboard series, this visual tool focuses on the executive level operations of an ambitious tech-driven company.

An executive dashboard example visualizing the number of paying customers, ARPU, CAC, CLTV, and MRR over the course of a month.

**click to enlarge**

The 3 most critical areas that any growing SaaS company should monitor are consumers, recurring revenue, and operational costs.

By pulling together all MRR and account data, your SaaS empire will gain a panoramic view of your most valuable metrics based on past, present, and predictive data. In turn, this level of scope empowers senior-level executives to develop a deep understanding of the actions they need to take to make the business more profitable.

Moreover, by gaining the ability to delve deeper into your ongoing operational costs to make your processes more efficient while getting a firm grasp of your customer lifetime value and acquisition costs, you will be able to develop the initiatives you need to achieve total industry domination.

Here is a rundown of the essential key performance indicators featured in our SaaS management dashboard template:

  • Customer Acquisition Costs
  • Customer Lifetime Value
  • ARPU
  • MRR

b) CMO dashboard created with SaaS technology

Our cutting-edge SaaS marketing dashboard is a shining example of how, from a tech perspective, SaaS dashboard software makes such valuable data-driven insights possible. This example focuses on chief marketing officers.

This is a SaaS dashboard that visualizes metrics relevant for a CMO, such as users, leads, MQL, SQL, etc.

**click to enlarge**

Sector or industry aside, CMOs (chief marketing officers) have an incredible responsibility to drive the promotional as well as customer-driven initiatives of the business. This particular SaaS KPI dashboard serves up the metrics required to deliver sustainable results.

As one of our most powerful SaaS dashboard examples (a demonstration of how this technology makes such data-driven innovations possible), our CMO-centric technology is centered on driving growth while monitoring website traffic to lead ratios, costs per leads, and MQL to SQL ratios, among many other essential insights.

Collectively, these KPIs and metrics create a more intelligent, confident, and informed customer-centric ecosystem that will accelerate the success of your business while helping you to adapt or respond to the constant changes of our fast-paced digital age.

Here, you will find everything you need to identify marketing trends, streamline your initiatives, and increase efficiency while connecting with your audience on a deeper, more meaningful level -  a testament to the business-boosting power of SaaS dashboard software.

Here is a list of the primary KPIs depicted in our example:

  • Sales Target & Growth
  • Website-Traffic-to-Lead Ratio
  • Cost per Lead
  • Lead-to-MQL Ratio
  • MQL-to-SQL Ratio

c) Customer Retention Dashboard

We already mentioned that one of the areas of focus for any Software-as-a-Service business is its customers. For this reason, our next example of a SaaS dashboard is full of useful customer retention metrics to get a clear picture of how your strategies are performing.

A SaaS dashboard tracking customer retention metrics

**click to enlarge**

Customer retention is the backbone of any Software as a Service business. By keeping customers satisfied every other aspect of the company should improve, the churn rate should minimize, and the profit increase. For this purpose, this dashboard, which keeps its focus on a SaaS business, comes equipped with all the data needed to optimize strategies and skyrocket your retention rates.

First, we see a quick overview of four fundamental metrics: the NPS score, the customer loyalty rate, the % of premium users, and the CVL. By having a quick glance at these numbers, you can easily get an idea of how the company is performing, the higher they are, the better.

Next, the example goes a bit more into detail about customer churn, revenue churn, net retention, and MRR. All the metrics are depicted in lengthy periods of time and compared with different targets, for example, the previous period of a year or the previous month. We will go more in-depth about the importance of all these metrics further in this post.

In the meantime, here is a list of the primary KPIs in our example:

  • Customer Churn
  • Net Retention Rate
  • Revenue Churn
  • MRR Growth Rate

d) MRR Dashboard

The MRR or monthly recurring revenue is the power plant of any SaaS business, as it is what ultimately drives growth and makes this business model stick out among others. For this reason, tracking this metric in detail with its own SaaS dashboard can help you understand if your subscription models are working and if your business is gaining momentum.

This SaaS dashboard tracks all elements of the monthly recurring revenue.

**click to enlarge**

The MRR measures the total amount of predictable revenue that a company expects in a month and it is simply calculated by summing up the monthly fee paid by every single paying customer. For big SaaS businesses this process might be tedious and time-consuming, for this reason, the MRR is usually calculated with the ARPU or average revenue per unit. This way you just multiply the total number of paying customers by the average amount all of those customers are paying each month.

Going a bit into detail about our SaaS dashboard example, if you want to extract actionable insights from your MRR you need to include a few more metrics in your analysis. As we see in the image above, the dashboard displays 5 KPIs related to MRR:

  • Total MRR: The total monthly recurring revenue.
  • Expansion MRR: The number of customers that upgraded their package or bought additional features.
  • Churned MRR: The MRR you lost because of customers canceling or downgrading their plans.
  • New Net MRR: The revenue brought by new customers. 
  • MRR Net Growth: Finally, the MRR growth is calculated considering all those other metrics with this formula:  Net New MRR = New MRR + Expansion MRR – Churn MRR.

E) SaaS Sales Pipeline Dashboard

When it comes to SaaS companies, the sales cycle is way more complex than regular businesses. We are talking about detailed planning and execution through several stages to reach the desired targets and goals. To do so, these organizations rely on sales pipelines to get a detailed overview of each stage of their cycle and optimize it to maximize results. Our last example provides the necessary knowledge to achieve this and much more.

SaaS pipeline dashboard tracking relevant metrics to optimize the sales cycle

**click to enlarge** 

Going a bit into detail about the content of this dashboard, we first get an overview of the open pipeline value by stage. This information is complemented with another open pipeline but by product package. These are especially valuable insights that enable you to understand where you should focus your efforts based on the package that has more monetary potential. Additionally, the template offers a valuable pipeline value forecast chart that includes predictions for the next 3 months to help you be prepared in advance. 

Finally, the template offers insights into your top 5 sales opportunities and their worst and best-case scenario along with a percentage of probability to be closed. The probability percentage is highly influenced by the stage of the pipeline in which the deal is currently, the lower they are in the funnel, the most likely to convert. 

Here is a list of the primary KPIs depicted in our example: 

  • Annual Contractual Value (ACV)
  • Open Pipeline Value
  • Open Pipeline by Product Package
  • Pipeline Value Forecast
Your Chance: Want to build your own SaaS dashboard with a few clicks?
Try our professional dashboard software for 14 days, completely free!

Key SaaS Metrics To Include On Your Dashboards

Now that you understand the dynamics of SaaS dashboards and the technology behind it, let’s explore the key performance indicators (KPIs) that facilitate the business-improving dynamics of SaaS dashboard templates.

Every solid SaaS dashboard example will contain a focused mix of interactive and highly visual KPIs that offer a panoramic snapshot of every key function within the business. Here are the most essential metrics - those you cannot afford to ignore.

1. SaaS Financial Metrics 

  • Customer acquisition cost

Regardless of what you do or offer, getting a meaningful gauge of how much it costs to sign up a customer is crucial.

The customer acquisition cost is the metric calculating all the costs involved during the acquisition process of a customer, from raising awareness to signing

An integral part of any dynamic dashboard for SaaS, your cost per acquisition (CAC) will empower you to make strategic financial tweaks to your business model while improving overall operational efficiency, particularly if you offer a subscription-based service.

By using this most interactive of SaaS performance metrics to your advantage and tracking your CAC over time, you gain the insight you need to drive down acquisition costs while streamlining key customer-facing aspects of the business.

  • Customer lifetime value (CLV)

Any SaaS analytics dashboard worth its salt should include the customer lifetime value (CLV) metric.

The customer lifetime value is a KPI that represents the amount of money you would like/forecast to make on the period of time that your relationship lasts with that customer. In this example, it's depicted throughout the last 10 weeks

The CLV KPI is one of the most integral elements of a typical SaaS analytics dashboard, as it gives you a clear indication of how much revenue you stand to gain from your average customer during the course of your relationship.

By visualizing consumer revenues over a particular period and setting specific benchmarks, this SaaS dashboard example will give you the power to predict how much value a customer is likely to offer, allowing you to distribute your resources while making smarter investments in the process.

The aim of the game here is to increase your CLV incrementally over time, and doing so will cement your evolution and growth in an increasingly cutthroat digital landscape.

  • The average revenue per unit (ARPU)

The best SaaS dashboard templates feature average revenue per unit (ARPU) metrics, presenting them in a digestible, interactive format for swift decision-making.

This template compares the CAC (customer acquisition costs) to the revenue generated by each customer.

This most important of SaaS business metrics offers a dynamic snapshot of your average customer’s value from your combined sales over a set timeframe. By gaining access to this incredibly valuable SaaS dashboard software information, you will be able to understand the factors that might be hindering your ARPU while formulating strategies to boost your bottom line in a smart, sustainable way. And with the help of a modern dashboard designer, you can easily visualize it, too.

  • Monthly recurring revenue (MRR)
A SaaS metric example tracking the MRR for the last month as well as last 12 months

We already showed you this KPI more in detail in our MRR dashboard example. No matter the type of SaaS you offer, the MRR is something you should have in your metrics toolkit, as it will give you a deep glimpse into your business’s revenue stream and, thus, the state of your financial health.

No other SaaS dashboard template KPI will provide you with a more accurate insight into your development as well as your commercial momentum on a reliable, recurring monthly basis.

There are several SaaS business-boosting branches of MRR as well as multiple to calculate monthly recurring revenue for optimum results. To help you sharpen your SaaS dashboard efforts, here is an essential guide to monthly recurring revenue for your reading pleasure.

  • Revenue Churn
A graph tracking the revenue churn for a year period. This metric is a fundamental part of a SaaS KPI dashboard

The next example of the top SaaS metrics is the revenue churn. This KPI goes hand in hand with customer churn, as it tracks the amount of revenues lost from the number of customers lost. The revenue loss can be translated into cancellations, downgrades, or the ending of business relationships. It is a particularly important metric to track since it gives an overall picture of the company's financial health.

Although it is important to monitor the revenue churn of all clients as a whole, it is also important to go into detail about specific trends for specific types of customers, for example, if your subscriptions price varies depending on the features that it includes, and you see a higher revenue lost for the priciest subscriptions maybe you need to look into it to see if clients are getting what they paid for.

2. SaaS Product Metrics 

  • North Star metric

Although this is not a predefined metric, it is one of the top SaaS metrics to measure the success of a product. Essentially, the north star metric will vary from business to business and it should be tight to the most important objectives and goals that drive growth. For example, for Medium its north star metric would be the time spent reading, for Zoom it would be the weekly hosted meetings, and for Quora, the number of questions answered. 

No matter what is your success driver, your north star metric should be at the top of your analytical efforts. Given that this indicator is directly tight to growth, the rest of the metrics you decide to track should also relate to this one. Likewise, every relevant stakeholder working with your product should be aware of this metric and use it to focus their efforts.  

  • Active users DAU, WAU, MAU

Also known as stickiness, the active users is a very straightforward metric that measures the number of users who engage with a SaaS application on a daily (DUA), weekly (WAU), and monthly (MAU) basis. It is a powerful indicator to evaluate engagement and retention and, if performing positively, it can also give an indication of market hold. 

The frequency of measurement for this metric (daily, weekly, or monthly) will depend on the company and its goals. It can also be tracked for specific features to extract insights on adoption and usage. 

  • Feature adoption 

As its name suggests, feature adoption is a broad SaaS product metric that can be looked at from different angles. Its value starts at the moment a customer uses a particular product feature and it can provide many insights to improve the user experience. Amongst its many use cases, the feature adoption can be tracked for: 

  • Time to adopt, to understand how long it takes customers to start using a feature after they first heard about it 
  • Duration of adoption, to track how long they use the feature for
  • The breadth of adoption, to learn the percentage of users who adopted the feature

3. SaaS Customer Metrics 

  • Customer Churn Rate
Customer churn rate is one of sales graphs focused on the number of customers that stopped using a specific service or product, expressed over a set period, and with the amount of lost revenue.

The customer churn is an especially important customer service KPI for any SaaS business as it allows you to evaluate the reasons why a customer stopped using the service during a specific time and gives you a realistic overview of the performance of your customer retention strategies.

The churn rate is calculated by dividing the total number of customers you had at the beginning of the month by the total number of customers lost. In the image above we see a chart that compares the customers lost every month with the revenue loss that comes with it. The main goal here is to keep the churn rate at a minimum, a healthy benchmark would be from 5-7% annually and 0,42-0,58% monthly.

If your organization offers a free trial, it is important to consider that prospective clients who fail to convert after their free period should not be included in your churn calculations as that is only considered a non-conversion. A churn only happens when a customer actively closes an account or cancels a subscription that has already given revenues to your business. However, many of the strategies you can create to reduce your customer churn can also add value to your product and encourage conversions.

  • Customer Retention
Customer retention is a highly important call center metric to measure loyalty in a SaaS dashboard

We’ve already stated in our service dashboard example that SaaS businesses are all about customers and most of their strategies are about retaining them. For this reason, the customer retention metric could not be left out of this essential list of metrics for your SaaS KPI dashboards.

This KPI is calculated by dividing the number of customers doing repeated actions, in the case of SaaS keeping an active subscription and dividing it by the total number of customers. A growing retention rate is what every Software as a Service business should aim for, that's why it should be one of the main metrics to track in a SaaS dashboard.

In the image above we can see two charts displaying customer retention stats for a year. The first graph shows a decrease in June, July, and August; however, it increases exponentially in the next months as we can see in the second graph which displays a healthy customer retention rate of 92% with a target of 90%.

4. SaaS Sales Metrics 

  • Sales qualified leads (SQL)

A sales qualified lead is one of the SaaS growth metrics used to track a prospective customer that has been initially recruited and approved by the marketing team. Usually, the prospective customer is trying to solve a specific need or problem and is aware that your product or service can solve that need. A good practice with regard to SQLs is to separate them into different categories based on a criterion that makes sense to your business. For example, leads that only visited your website once versus leads that are regular readers of your blog. This way, you’ll know how to tackle each lead appropriately and move them down the funnel to turn them into paying customers. 

  • Average selling price (ASP) 

The ASP is one of the straightforward sales KPIs that tracks the average price a product or service sells for across all customers and channels. In retail, this metric usually measures the amount of money a customer paid for a product, but in the SaaS world, it is often tracked as the average revenue per customer. It is calculated by dividing the company’s revenue by the number of customers, excluding renewals or upgrades. 

  • Customer acquisition costs (CAC) payback period 

The CAC payback period measures the time it takes a SaaS company to earn back what it spent on acquiring customers. It is usually tracked monthly, and it is an important metric to monitor especially considering that SaaS businesses that work on a subscription-based model require several months to gain profit from each new customer. It is also an interesting indicator to show to investors as it provides an accurate picture of your business’s growth potential. 

Naturally, the longer the CAC payback period, the more time it takes the company to become profitable. For that reason, SaaS applications need to make sure they are offering an engaging and interesting product that will make customers want to keep using it.  An industry standard for the payback period is 5 to 12 months.  

5. SaaS Marketing Metrics

  • Lead velocity rate (LVR)

The lead velocity rate is a very important metric to track and assess growth in the Software-as-a-Service industry. It measures the success of your marketing efforts in bringing growth to the company by tracking the increase or decrease of qualified leads from one month to the other. The LVR is considered a critical metric to track, at times even more valuable strategically than the MRR. This is because the lead velocity is tracked in real-time and it can help predict and control future revenue. If you see that your LVR for a month was too low then you can take action to improve in the coming period.  

  • Marketing qualified lead (MQL) 
Lead-to-MQL ratio as an example of a SaaS marketing metric

An MQL is a lead that the marketing team has qualified as a potential customer based on predefined criteria that change from business to business. These leads are often gathered through various methods that can include contact forms, free trials, resource downloads, emails, and many more. From the gathered leads, the ones that meet the business's ideal customer profile are transferred to the sales team to be potentially turned into paying customers. 

In the image above, generated with professional SaaS metrics software, we can see a chart tracking the lead-to-MQL ratio on a daily basis. This is valuable data to have at hand as it can help you understand if you are using the right strategies to recruit useful leads. 

  • Net Promoter Score
The net promoter score (NPS) lets you know likely are your customers to refer your business’s products and services to someone they know

This is a metric that is fundamental for any type of business, not just in the SaaS industry, but it is still important to mention since it gives you a notion of how happy your customers are with your service by looking at referrals.

The chart above displays the results of a question on how likely from a scale of “0-10 would you recommend our service to a friend”, the results are divided between promoters and detractors, which are then subtracted to get the total NPS score of the company. The higher the NPS score the better for your business.

SaaS companies can extract a lot of value from the NPS score, for example by sending a survey like the one in the example, customers can give valuable feedback to improve the service.

Your Chance: Want to build your own SaaS dashboard with a few clicks?
Try our professional dashboard software for 14 days, completely free!

What Should Be In A SaaS Dashboard?

Now that you know what metrics you need to include in your dashboards and saw some templates that could be useful for your business, it is time to go through the main points that should be included in a successful SaaS dashboard.

1.   A mix of SaaS KPIs

The first step is to select a mix of SaaS KPIs that will ensure you are covering all your business goals. SaaS businesses produce massive amounts of data, and covering all of it for your analysis process can make you lose time you could spend focusing on the performance indicators from which you can extract actionable insights, which can easily be done with the help of a KPI tool.

Additionally, you need to consider the interdependencies between the metrics you’ll use. Although one metric alone can tell you a lot about a specific area of your business when you pair it with other metrics you can encounter much more advanced conclusions.

For example, by tracking the average revenue per user (ARPU) together with the customer acquisition cost (CAC) you can understand how much time it will take you to recover the investment you did in acquiring new customers. This is efficiently displayed in the image below, in which the chart compares the performance of both metrics alongside a line on the second axis that predicts the time the CAC would take to recover in months.

SaaS dashboard KPI example: Track your Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC) and Average Revenue per User (ARPU) to calculate your time to recover your CAC.

**click to enlarge**

2.   High-quality data

Going a bit deeper into the first point, when creating your SaaS dashboards, you also need to consider data quality management (DQM) in your process. DQM is an important process in which businesses assess their data to make sure that it meets the necessary quality standards to fulfill their needs in terms of operations, planning, and decision-making. Low-quality data can impact the productivity of a business as well as the overall ROI.

For SaaS businesses using the wrong data can mean a bad understanding of customer behaviors which can directly impact their profitability. There are a few areas in which a business can focus to achieve successful data quality management:

  • Data profiling: This process involves reviewing the data in detail, running statistical models, and comparing and contrasting the data to its own metadata. This is the starting point in the DQM process and sets the standard for how to improve the quality of the information.
  • Data quality: In order for a good assessment of the data, you should create rules or parameters based on your general goals. These rules will define if the data is considered valuable or if something needs to be fixed.
  • Data reporting:  This is the process of removing and recording all compromising data.
  • Data repair: This is the process of determining the best way to remediate the data and the most efficient way to implement the changes.

It is important to consider that data quality management processes require advanced knowledge, therefore you need to invest in a team that will be able to perform the DQM in the best way. If you want to know more about this topic read our practical guide on data quality management.

3. A mix of current and historical data   

Another fundamental element a successful SaaS metrics dashboard should include is a mix of current and historical data. On one hand, real-time insights will enable you to spot any issues as soon as they occur as well as spot improvement opportunities and finetune your strategies to avoid wasting resources. On the other hand, historical data will help you give your live metrics some context and make sense of the results. For instance, you might see a growth in SQLs from one month to another and think that is a positive development. However, if you look at the past six months you might realize that the average number of SQLs was way higher before and something happened in the past month that needs to be investigated. 

Having this mix of current and historical insights will help you get a 360-view of your performance and provide the necessary tools to make the best strategic decisions by squeezing every bit of potential from your SaaS dashboard.  

4. Interactive visualizations

Although numbers are the most important part of your SaaS dashboard, they would be nothing without the right type of visualization to display them. Infinite excel sheets or static graphs are no longer enough to extract the type of insights that will give your business a competitive advantage. For this reason, you should invest in tools that offer interactive visuals that will boost your data storytelling.

datapine is a BI reporting tool that offers the possibility to create online dashboards with a user-friendly interface that will allow anyone in your business to create powerful reports with just a few clicks. The benefit of this tool lies in its interactivity. You can choose from a wide range of graphs and charts to visualize your data and support your decision-making. Additionally, the whole analysis process can be done on one screen and the data can be filtered depending on who needs to use it, or the discussion that it needs to support.

5. Interactive filters

A well-made SaaS dashboard should include multiple interactive filters to dig deeper into the data and answer any questions that might arise during the analysis process. It is no secret that dealing with massive amounts of data is not an easy task and trying to squeeze every single detail into a report is hard and unproductive. That said, modern SaaS dashboard software offers interactive filters to help users navigate through the data without the need to overcrowd the dashboard with information or generate multiple ones. 

datapine’s dashboard designer offers users a drill down filter to dig into lower levels of data. For example, if you are looking at active users by country, you can click into a specific country and the chart will adapt to show active users by cities of that country. Another filter lets you visualize different time periods of your metrics by simply clicking on the desired time frequency. This enables you to get a centralized view of your most important data, making the decision-making process run smoothly and more efficiently. 

6. Labels and colors   

It might sound like an obvious point, but many dashboard users fail in the process because they ignore relevant design factors that can significantly enhance the way the data is perceived. On that note, including relevant labels to make the metrics in the dashboard clearer and easier to understand is an invaluable practice. It will not only help external stakeholders such as investors to be on track with the context of the information, but it will also help non-technical users understand the data in a friendlier way. 

On the other side, using colors wisely can also make a difference when it comes to a successful SaaS dashboard. In this regard, it is wise to use a light color palette and use different shades of the same color to show the different metrics. This will make the dashboard more visually appealing and not tiering to the eye. Likewise, using colors to show the status of different metrics such as green for positive development and red for negative is another great practice.  

7. Actionable & accessible data

Last but not least, in order to achieve a successful dashboarding process is to make it actionable and accessible for everyone.

Today, thanks to a wide range of business analytics tools you can visualize all your important KPIs from different touchpoints in one SaaS dashboard, and automate the process so you have the latest data to work with. These two points will make your dashboards actionable tools that will ultimately lead to better decision-making.

Additionally, you should make sure that your SaaS dashboards are user-friendly and accessible for everyone in your organization. Empowering all your employees to rely on data for their working processes will ensure sustainable growth for your business.

What Are The Benefits Of SaaS Technology?

As this innovative technology is in its infancy, the history of SaaS dashboard software is relatively short, but the numerous benefits have already been proven as quite lucrative. Here is a list of the most important ones:

1. Cost-effective alternative to traditional IT deployment

The initial setup costs of a SaaS solution are much lower than on-premise systems because you don’t need to build your own infrastructure and employ a whole IT department to maintain it. You only need to access the software through an Internet connection and decide on your subscription plan. This can be done with the help of modern cloud BI tools.

2. Speedy integration

Following the first point, the ability to develop your plan and deploy quickly will enable you to speed up your business benefits. The administration and installation processes are significantly reduced while modern SaaS tools will enable you to connect a wide range of databases in a matter of minutes. Developing a comprehensive analytical report is no longer a matter of days or weeks, but merely minutes thanks to speedy integration possibilities.

3. Flexible and scalable solutions

The requirement to stay agile in today’s competitive environment is of utmost importance if you want to obtain success. SaaS tools enable you to choose the best delivery model that corresponds with your business requirements and adapt it as it changes. The additional features provide access from mobile phones, tablets, and laptops so you can access your information and selected KPIs anytime, anyplace.

To learn more about how to manage different touchpoints and increase the flexibility of your company, you can read our article on the topic of enterprise software.

4. Data analysis like never before

Compiling analysis results with the help of interactive dashboards and charts is one of the main features a SaaS solution can offer. With the possibility to share your KPI reports in various formats and automate the time they need to be delivered, the recipients will always have an up-to-date state of data and have the power to generate actionable insights on their own, by simply utilizing professional reporting software.

5. Sustainable business intelligence (BI)

In today’s hyper-connected age, if you’re a SaaS company, emphasizing sustainable BI is essential to ongoing success.

The superior analytical insights, round-the-clock access, and seamless software upgrades of SaaS examples create a perfect storm of informational evolution that makes driving innovation through consistent BI possible.

Niche or sector aside, you should never underestimate the power of online business intelligence - and by embracing the power of SaaS dashboard templates, you will be rewarded in the long-term.

6. Buy-in

Another clear-cut benefit of SaaS dashboards is the fact that the accessible visual nature of these innovations makes it easier and more effective to persuade stakeholders, both internal and external, about the value of certain campaigns, proposals, or initiatives.

The best SaaS dashboard templates tell a story, painting a vivid data-driven picture that will help you make an effective case for business-boosting initiatives across the board. Gaining executive buy-in means you stand a greater chance of driving business innovation which, in turn, will push you ahead of the pack.

Your Chance: Want to build your own SaaS dashboard with a few clicks?
Try our professional dashboard software for 14 days, completely free!

Key Takeaways On SaaS Dashboards

With so much data available in the digital age, knowing what’s valuable and what’s redundant is essential to success. A SaaS KPI dashboard will help you do just that.

If you want to accelerate the growth and success of your SaaS, letting your innovation shine through for all to see, adopting a data-driven approach will prove incredibly effective.

At this point, you will no doubt agree that SaaS dashboard technology and innovations are the way forward. Not only does this level of data-driven software help to improve communication and efficiency across the board, but it will provide your business with a level of vision that will help you stand out in your niche. No matter if you need to develop a financial report, marketing, or procurement, SaaS is there to support any data-driven undertakings.

On the other hand, as a Software-as-a-Service provider, it’s likely that your products or offerings are founded on forward-thinking solutions built for the modern age. That said, there is no room for living in the past when it comes to your data analytics or BI initiatives.

The only way to compete, improve, and evolve in the digital world is to gather concise information and use it to its optimum capacity. If you don’t do so, your competitors will - and you’ll run the risk of being left in the commercial dust.

The bottom line? We live in a time when business intelligence reigns supreme. Those who leverage the right tools, platforms, and metrics to enhance every aspect of their business will emerge victorious – especially in the SaaS sector. This means that embracing the power of analytics tools isn’t an option - it’s essential.

If you want to explore the business-boosting benefits of SaaS dashboards today and get ahead of the competition, try datapine for a 14-day trial. You will not regret it.