Dashboards are a powerful way to bring multiple charts together into a single view and is even more powerful if they interact with one another.

Best practices you should keep in mind while designing any dashboard are (1) Choose metrics based on why they matter (2) Make it interactive (3) Make it visual (4) Make it simple to access and use (5) Make it updatable (keep it current).

Tableau has written some best practices for dashboards that include the above a five but add one more called mistakes to avoid.

Within Tableau we can accomplish these best practices by applying hierarchies, actions, filters and parameters.

Tableau lists seven mistakes to avoid. It’s in an article here. The first is starting off with too much complexity. The second mistake to avoid is using metrics that no one understands. The third mistake to avoid is decluttering the dashboard with unimportant graphics. The fourth mistake to avoid is waiting for complex technology and big deployment projects for business intelligence to happen.

Here are some things that your dashboard should adhere to.

• objectives-focused (choose metrics that matter)
• optimized for multiple data sources (get ALL the data)
• visual (choose effective charts)
• interactive (drill down, filter, adjust parameters)
• current (easily updatable with the latest data)
• accessible to its audience(not complex, logging in, color choices – color blind)

Here’s an article on the 5 Key Principles of Good Dashboard Design.