Dates and location
Pricing
Hours
Dates and location
Pricing
Hours
Description
How much of our data is actionable information?
Effective data visualization and dashboarding is more than just creating charts in Excel. It starts with understanding what users need, identifying relevant data, and using appropriate visual techniques, structures and "stories" to support understanding, insights and action.
This CPA Ontario Certificate program provides participants with the skills to create effective visual reports and dashboards and how to introduce these new ideas into your organization. The course will cover some new charts in Excel, but the principles and process of design can be applied to any software. Using case studies and activities, the course includes information for decision making, misleading visuals, plus a comprehensive team-based case study creating a board level dashboard design.
Participants will receive an Excel workbook that provides practical instructions on how to build the new charts and illustrates other techniques covered in the program.
This Certificate program includes pre-course reading and preparation.
Participants will have the option to put their design knowledge into practice by submitting a post-course project assessment of a dashboard for an existing organization. Successful completion the project assessment will entitle participants to a Certificate from the Institute of Business Analytics (IBA).
Successful completion of this program, including the post-course project, will entitle participants to a Certificate in Business Analytics and Reporting from the Institute of Business Analytics.
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Schedule
- October 7, 2024, 9:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
- October 8, 2024, 9:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
- October 9, 2024, 9:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
- October 10, 2024, 9:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Key Takeaways
Upon completion of this course, you will learn:
- Six step process to effective visual reporting and dashboards.
- Five key categories of actionable information.
- Impact of memory on choice of techniques, report structure, and dashboards.
- Metrics, KPIs, leading indicators and data transformation.
- Data in tables: When to use tables and when to use visuals.
- Pareto, box-plot, trellis, heat maps, bullet charts and other critical techniques for your design toolkit.
- Use Excel to create pareto, box-plot, trellis and other techniques.
- Benefits and limitations of pie charts, waterfall or bridge charts.
- Colour, minimalism, non-data ink design and considerations of alternate techniques.
- "Pretty" versus effective design.
- Trade-offs and considerations of how much information to include.
- Dashboard summaries, dashboard types, and when to break the "rules".
- Telling stories with data "ad-hoc" reports versus fixed format dashboards.
- Story structures for different scenarios.
- Business Intelligence (BI), data flow, and data sources for dashboards.
- Visualization and Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA).
- Introduction to linear regression and predictive analytics.
Earn a Digital Badge
Our new collection of digital badges can be earned through the completion of any of our certificate programs offered in our professional development catalogue. Collect these digital badges to add to your website, social profiles, email signature and more. These badges are an easy way to visually communicate your skills and accomplishments to your peers and network. Digital badges will be awarded based on course completion requirements.
Who Will Benefit
Business professionals who want to understand why traditional reporting often fails to address user needs and who want to improve the clarity and communication of key messages in reports and dashboards.
Prerequisite(s)
Participants must use MS Excel (version 2010 or later). An external mouse is strongly recommended for the hands-on work, as well as a functioning internal microphone to experience the full audio portion of the course.
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How to Access the Course
We're pleased to invite you to register for our Certificate courses. Whether or not you're a CPA, you're more than welcome to join us on this learning journey. To get started, you'll need to create an account. Don't worry if you don't have a CPA Ontario ID yet; you can easily set up your account right here. Let's begin your learning adventure together.
After registration participants will be given access to the trainers' learning portal where they can register to receive the pre-course reading and learning materials. Participants will be provided with course notes to review prior the course.
To access the course please visit our BlackBoard site, and log-in using the same login and password used for the Registration Portal.
Please allow up to 15 minutes after registration for the seminar to appear on your BlackBoard page.
Registration, cancellation, withdrawal and all other CPA Ontario PD policies can be found here.
Speaker(s)
Simon Lindley is an international trainer, speaker and consultant in business transformation through analytics. He brings expertise in data analytics, visualization and dashboard design to transform the role and performance of finance teams. Simon is a Chartered Accountant, Chartered Engineer (IT) and MBA with a Masters Diploma in corporate governance. He also has training and qualifications in statistics and data science. In addition to training Simon has worked as a project/ commercial manager for business and finance transformation projects for large corporations, Big 4 Accounting and Consulting firms and a major research business.