Who This Helps
This is for Product Managers tired of stale dashboards. If you're answering the same 'what happened last week?' questions manually, the Metrics & Dashboards Basics course shows you a better way. You'll move from reactive reporting to proactive insight.
Mini Case
Sam's team asked about feature adoption every Thursday. Sam spent 90 minutes pulling numbers, formatting slides, and emailing updates. That's 6 hours a month just repeating work. After automating, those questions get answered instantly. Sam saved 72 hours a year and the team gets daily context.
Do This Now (5 Steps)
- Pick your one biggest repeat question. Is it 'How many users completed onboarding?' or 'What's our weekly retention?'
- Find where that data lives now. Is it in your analytics tool, a spreadsheet, or a database?
- Write down the exact answer format you need. A single number? A percentage? A simple trend line?
- Check if your current dashboard tool (like Looker, Tableau, or even Google Sheets) has built-in automation or alerts.
- Schedule your first automated update. Start with a weekly email to yourself to test it. Your future self will thank you.
Avoid These Traps
- Don't try to automate everything at once. Start with one metric.
- Don't forget to tell your team the report is now automated. Otherwise, they'll still ask you.
- Don't set it and forget it. Review the automated output twice to ensure accuracy.
- Avoid complex visualizations at first. A clear number is better than a confusing chart.
- Don't use jargon in your report titles. 'New Users' is better than 'NUA Cohort'.
- Never share automated data without a one-sentence context. Add 'This is up 12% from last week'.
- Don't skip setting up error alerts. If the data pipeline breaks, you should know first.
- Avoid creating reports no one reads. Ask one teammate if they find it useful.
Your Win by Friday
By Friday, you'll have one key product question answered automatically. You'll reclaim that time for real strategy work. You'll walk into your next meeting with fresh numbers, not last week's slides. That's the power of keeping context on autopilot. Go enjoy that coffee while the report writes itself.