BI Requirements Template for Dashboards and Reporting
A reusable structure for defining Business Intelligence requirements before building dashboards, reports, semantic models or Power BI datasets.
This template helps business and data teams avoid unclear dashboard scopes, inconsistent KPI definitions and reporting projects that produce visuals without decision value.
Why it matters
BI projects fail when requirements describe visuals but not decisions.
A dashboard is only useful if its business questions, KPI definitions, data sources, filters, refresh expectations and ownership rules are clear before development starts.
Stakeholders ask for dashboards but disagree on KPI definitions.
Reports show similar metrics with different numbers across teams.
Data sources, refresh rules and filters are not documented before development.
Users ask for visuals without clarifying what decisions the report should support.
Resource structure
What the template covers
The template organizes BI requirements into business context, data scope, KPI definitions, governance and delivery priorities.
Business context and users
Clarify who will use the report and what decisions it should support.
- Define target users and decision moments
- List business questions the report must answer
- Identify reporting frequency and consumption context
KPI definitions and calculations
Document how each metric should be calculated and interpreted.
- Define numerator, denominator and business rules
- Document filters, exclusions and calculation levels
- Identify owners responsible for KPI validation
Data sources and refresh rules
Clarify where data comes from and how often it must be updated.
- List source systems, tables, files or APIs
- Define refresh frequency and latency expectations
- Document data quality checks and known limitations
Dashboard scope and governance
Keep the report maintainable after the first release.
- Prioritize must-have vs later visuals
- Define access rules and distribution methods
- Plan validation, change requests and ownership
Related Datilog expertise
Continue from preparation to implementation.
This resource is designed to help your team clarify the project. Datilog can then support architecture, delivery, automation and governance.
Next step
Turn this resource into a practical roadmap.
Share your current context and Datilog can help identify the highest-value actions for your data, cloud or workflow automation initiative.