For nearly 100 years, Statistics Estonia has collected, processed and published important national statistics. Large and comprehensive tables of data have been available all the time, but questions and surprises in entrepreneurs came out when the same statistics were presented as a clear picture on the dashboard.

How does your company work and do you have something to learn from Statistics Estonia’s experience?

The fact is, without a visual image, it is often difficult to sense the right trend and see important ratios for quick decisions. We talked about the completed solution with Merle Kivirähk who is the Project Manager of the Business Technology Department of Statistics Estonia. Information about what is happening in your sector can be easily found in Statistics Estonians constantly renewing BI dashboard called Juhtimislaud.

Stastikaamet

Why Statistics Estonia needed the BI dashboard?

Many different government agencies, ministries, businesses, regional statistics using municipalities and even ordinary consumers have always wanted a quick and convenient overview of their field. The aim of Statistics Estonia was to add even more practical value to the data they collected for the widest possible group of people who could get an easy-to-understand overview of the data. Even more exciting, besides the convenience, everyone can personalize their own control panel.

The final solution was to create a visualized and, if desired, personalized BI dashboards where the most recent data is always easily accessible and automatically updated. The data graphs on the dashboard can be conveniently integrated and embedded into your homepage, intranet or other systems, so you can stay up to date with the latest information in your field. A visual dashboard can help you make strategically the right decisions, give you an overview of where the sector is heading, or increase transparency for citizens as to where important national indicators are heading.

What to keep in mind while developing this type of solution?

It would be advisable to approach the challenge with a partner. As the project was requested for structural funding, it set some constraints and the process would certainly have been more flexible in the private sector. With this project, we can say that we evolved together! For both, Statistics Estonia and Net Group, this was a major challenge at first, but one side complemented the other and worked together to find appropriate solutions. It is important that the solution fulfills its purpose. With the control panel, the user can conveniently view the entire sector of interest. When Statistics Estonia visited the Tourism Fair to present the solution, the participants came up with the questions, “Why there are numbers like this?” and “how they came” when the statistics were displayed as a picture. Although this data has been available all the time, it has been difficult to discern between large data arrays and various tables. There is a lot of information that people do not recognize because it is not comfortable and clearly in sight.

What value does this BI dashboard offer to its users?

The greatest value for the user is that the indicators are immediately and personalized by subjects and also pre-drawn. No more wasting time on separate data tables! There is also no juxtaposition of different data tables; the information is automatically updated and the latest data is always available instantly. Also, the dashboard has a “reuse principle”, that is, a once-selected or ready-to-use graph is already designed and can be integrated into various channels and applied in daily work so that data is updated over time.

The feedback from the users is also good – the result is visually nice and very comfortable to use. Control panel visit statistics also indicate that there is interest in this solution and we believe it is growing over time. We have also heard growing interest from local authorities and we have been invited to present the solution in several places. It is certainly worth noting that the management boards were recognized as one of the best open data publishers of last year by the

Open Knowledge Estonia.

In addition, looking beyond Estonia, at the moment we do not remember anyone with a statistics solution that could be personalized like that. Elsewhere in the world, statistics are also visualized to be convenient and easy to access. For example, you can find many paid platforms and various mobile apps but all steps are completely free on our dashboard!

To sum up, we are really happy with the solution today and can say that this project was very well managed by the Net Group. We are thankful for the constant thinking, for providing new solutions, for the rapid exchange of information and for implementing the new CVI of Statistics Estonia.

In early March, Statistics Estonia recognized Net Group as its Partner of the Year! It is a great honor for us to receive this recognition, and we are also very grateful for the pleasant cooperation with Statistics Estonia!

Use dashboards and make smart decisions! https://juhtimislauad.stat.ee

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