The idea
To keep track of the audit engagement progress and to improve the efficiency of the reporting process to the whole team, a Data Studio dashboard is divered by me during the engagement so that every team member can view the real-time status online at any time. The screenshot above is a simplified user guide for my engagement teams to understand and use my dashboards better.
To readers
For the sharing purpose of the reporting dashboard, a sample dashboard, as well as a sample Google sheet, is provided and any reader can get access to them by clicking the links below.
The design
- Purpose
The common pain point of the engagement reporting is the cost of communication. Every time it takes much time for the documentor to refresh the memory, summarize and update the status, while sometimes other team members may have an urgent need on some file status to reduce repeated workload. Hence, keeping the whole team on the same page by providing a real-time engagement status is the purpose of the dashboard.
Not only can it be a one-person assignment status report, but also it can be utilized as a whole-team engagement status report since the Google sheet will be a shared file and each team member can update their progress in the same sheet, which will be reflected in the dashboard immediately.
- Walkthrough of the Demonstration
Above is a whole view of the sample dashboard. Users can have an intuitive view through the pie chart and column charts from the upper half of the dashboard. While more details of the assignments will be available in tables when they view the lower half of the dashboard.
Next, the specific functions of the dashboard will be introduced in details.
As framed in the screenshot above, there’re one pie chart, showing the composition of the assignments, and two column charts. From the pie chart, 40 percent of the assignments are related to the planning documents, while other operating expense (OPEX), financial statments (FS) and Account Receivables, the three categories take up 20 percent each. Moreover, users are able to tell the exact number of the assignments in each category from the column chart in the middle. For instance, there’re 2 documents assigned for planning in the sample. Additionally, from the column chart on the right side, the team can tell the progress of the assignments. The latest update for the assignments is on 10 January, 2022, when one document was updated.
The dashboard also provides a way that the users can interact by clicking a pie, a column or a row of the table to filter out the assignments they’re looking for. The screenshot below shows an example when a team member is looking for more details on the one assignment that was the most recent update.
After clicking the “Jan 10 2022” column in the chart, the team member will be able to find out the latest update comes from the 20010 Account Receivables document, with the confirmation letter sent out on 10 January, 2022. In this case, the team member will not need to check the mailbox or the system if the letter is sent out externally or not.
Besides the filter through a click on the charts and tables, the dashboard also provides options for users to filter in a traditional way from the filters on the left hand.
Through the 6 filters, the team can filter out any assignment details they’re looking for. One common use case could be that the team would like to know the assignments with pending files so that they may follow up with the stakeholders. In this case, they can simply click the “ONLY” botton besides the “Pending files” status and the overview of the assignments will be updated.
By doing so, the 3 assignments with the pending-file status, are filtered and shown in the dashboard, from the Testing of OPEX, FY2022 Final Deliverables to the AR confirmation letter. Therefore, it makes it more efficient for the team since team members can split the tasks easily and follow up with the client, partner and the intercompany seperately.