For day 5 of dashboard week, we were assigned to produce a visualisation on a dataset provided by the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission (ACNC) for 2017-2019. This dataset is filled with information ranging from their main activities, beneficiaries, employment, financials, etc. In this blog, I will provide a high level overview of my workflow and dashboard.
Alteryx Workflow
The purpose of manipulating the unaggregated data in Alteryx was to normalise the data into separate tables. Each table contained information on a financial metric which were transposed and split into multiple components for further drilldowns in Tableau. The following figure illustrates my data preparation for the ACNC dataset.
Tableau Dashboard
The approach I took for this dashboard was to focus on Australian universities that registered with the ACNC. Specifically, this dashboard explores the financial metrics (revenue, expenses, assets, and liabilities) for universities at a high-level overview, state level, and top N individual level.
This week I have learnt to be cautious when forming my own conclusions and interpretations. For example, understanding when it is appropriate to use summaries average and/or median. Since the mean is the only measure of central tendency that is affected by anomalies and outliers, it may be more suitable to use the median. Of course, this depends on the analysis and distribution of the data.
With this noted, I have allowed the user to switch between average and median for the respective financial summary at the state level as shown below.
When average is selected, it is clear there are universities that are large outliers which result in a higher green intensity on the map. Further, it is interesting to find that the Net Surplus/Deficit average and median for Northern Territory (NT) are the same, leading to me learning that Charles Darwin University is the only university in NT.
That wraps up day 5 and my experience for dashboard week. Thank you for reading!