Create a Procurement Dashboard In 3 Steps
How to Create a Procurement Dashboard
A procurement dashboard is a visual tool that provides a quick, easy-to-understand overview of an organization’s purchasing activities and performance.
Think of it as a control panel that shows key information about procurement processes at a glance.
It serves as a centralized hub where companies can oversee key procurement metrics, track performance indicators, and improve communication with suppliers and internal teams.
Essential Features for a Procurement Dashboard
These are just some of the fundamental features to get started with building a procurement dashboard.
One of the most critical features is user authentication and access control. A secure login system with multi-level access ensures that only authorized users can access specific parts of the dashboard.
This includes the ability for administrators to create and manage user profiles, reset passwords, and update contact information.
The procurement dashboard should also provide real-time access to essential metrics, such as purchase orders, supplier performance, cost savings, and delivery timelines.
Functionalities for procurement monitoring, reporting, communication, and access to historical data are crucial.
Additionally, providing tools for analytics and reporting, such as supplier comparisons, spend analysis, and procurement KPI tracking, is vital. Integration with other internal systems, like ERP or inventory management, can further enhance the dashboard’s usefulness.
Build or Buy Your Procurement Dashboard
When it comes to implementing a procurement dashboard, businesses face a crucial decision: should you build a custom solution or buy an off-the-shelf product?
If you build one using Five, you can develop exactly what you need without unnecessary bloat, tailored to your business’s specific procurement processes.
Building a procurement dashboard allows you to connect to your existing IT infrastructure, serving as a single source of truth across all systems. It also ensures compatibility with legacy systems, working around the constraints of older software that may not be replaceable.
Having control over your procurement data is paramount. This means keeping all internal information under your direct supervision.
Off-the-shelf procurement dashboard solutions may not offer the same level of data privacy.
Building a secure procurement dashboard becomes much simpler with Five. Five offers several advantages: it significantly speeds up the development process, requires no extensive coding knowledge, is more affordable than hiring a developer, and allows you to customize your procurement dashboard to meet your specific needs.
In the long run, building a custom solution can be more cost-effective. Licensing fees for off-the-shelf procurement dashboard solutions can add up quickly, with some costing thousands of dollars annually.
Creating a Procurement Dashboard Can Be Easy
Building procurement dashboards used to be a complex task requiring extensive coding knowledge.
Organizations often had to hire “expert developers,” which could lead to high costs and subpar results. Customizations were difficult, often requiring additional development work.
Fortunately, times have changed. Creating procurement dashboards is now much easier with rapid portal builders like Five. These tools simplify the process, making it quicker and more accessible.
With Five, you can jump right in and have your procurement dashboard built and running in a single afternoon. While there is still a learning curve, this approach is far more efficient than traditional methods.
With Five, you can:
- Set up your procurement dashboard interface in minutes.
- Create a user-friendly, login-protected web interface for your procurement dashboard.
- Easily import existing procurement data, allowing you to get started quickly.
Get free access to Five and start building your procurement dashboard today.
While we joke about “expert developers,” the Five team actually has a team of experts ready to assist you. So, if you ever feel like you’re in over your head, don’t worry, our expert developers are here to help you. And yes, we promise not to charge you an arm and a leg or leave you with a system that only we understand. To get a free consultation visit this page “Hire An Expert.”
How to Create a Procurement Dashboard
Here’s how you can create a procurement dashboard using Five, along with some prerequisites to consider.
Step 1: Access Five
If you haven’t already, sign up for free access to Five. Five offers a free trial for 14 days with no credit card required. Depending on your project’s complexity and data storage requirements, you may need a paid plan.
Step 2: List Out Procurement Dashboard Attributes
Start by compiling a complete list of all attributes relevant to your Procurement Dashboard. Consider what matters to your business: purchase order tracking, supplier performance, cost savings analysis, delivery timelines, etc.
Your procurement dashboard should serve as a “single source of truth,” so ensure it’s as comprehensive as possible.
Here are some must-have attributes that are typically included in a procurement dashboard:
- User authentication and access control
- Purchase order and supplier performance tracking
- Cost savings analysis
- Integration with ERP and inventory management systems
- Reporting and analytics features
Follow our YouTube tutorial for a step-by-step guide, covering everything starting from database modeling.
The first step explains how to create a database table in Five. This quick four-and-a-half-minute video is highly recommended if your main goal is developing a procurement dashboard.
The video also shows how to assign different SQL data types to your table fields and use Five’s database modeler to visualize your schema. Five automatically adds primary keys to all your tables, simplifying the setup process.
Procurement Dashboard Design and User Experience with Five
Once you have defined your procurement dashboard’s attributes and set up the database tables in Five, you can start focusing on the design and user experience.
Five allows you to create a highly intuitive and user-friendly interface for your procurement dashboard, directly linked to the data stored in your tables.
User-Centric Design with Five: Five allows you to create a highly intuitive and user-friendly interface for your procurement dashboard. It’s easy to design a clean layout, ensuring that users can navigate effortlessly. You can customize the UI to fit your business’s branding and user preferences.
Personalization Features: With Five, you can build personalized dashboards for each department or procurement aspect. Users can easily add widgets or shortcuts to their most-used tools and resources, creating a more tailored and efficient user experience.
Built-In Search Functionality: Five offers robust search capabilities that can be easily integrated into your procurement dashboard. Users can quickly locate purchase orders, supplier information, or contract details by searching by column names or keywords, making navigation straightforward.
Mobile-Optimized Design: Five enables you to create a responsive procurement dashboard that works on any device. This means users can access essential resources on the go, with a layout that adapts to different screen sizes for optimal usability.
Step 3: Launch Your Procurement Dashboard Online
Once your procurement dashboard’s database is ready and well-defined, you can begin populating it with the necessary data.
Using Five, you can easily upload CSV files directly into your SQL database. Simply ensure that the columns in your CSV align with the fields in your database, and import the data into your database tables.
Additionally, you can create a user-friendly, web-based database graphical user interface with Five. This interface can feature forms for adding or editing records, charts for visualizing data, and the ability to generate PDF reports using data from the database.
When you’re ready to deploy your procurement dashboard, sign up for one of our paid plans, starting at just $29.99 per month per application. This plan includes unlimited end-users and provides you with a custom URL to access the Procurement Dashboard online.
Conclusion: Building a Procurement Dashboard
A well-designed procurement dashboard is essential for any business looking to monitor and manage their procurement processes effectively. With modern tools like Five, the process of creating a custom Procurement Dashboard has become more accessible than ever.
Businesses no longer need to rely on expensive developers or settle for one-size-fits-all solutions. Instead, they can rapidly build and deploy a procurement dashboard that truly serves their unique needs.
Get free access to Five and start building your procurement dashboard today.
