Designing an Analytics Dashboard using Grafana for a Material Procurement System: A Case Study of Company XYZ

Abstract

The need to monitor the status and progress of ongoing material procurement activities without manually navigating operational data motivated the design of the Grafana analytics dashboard presented in this study. The dashboard was embedded in the web-based material procurement system (PAL SCM) at Company XYZ and consisted of five thematic dashboards, each addressing a different monitoring requirement. Grafana was integrated directly into the application interface using an iframe, with dashboard visibility controlled through the user management module. Only users assigned the Board of Directors Secretary role could access both the Grafana dashboards and the main application dashboard on a single page, while users with other roles could access only the main dashboard. Grafana remained independently accessible through its own URL in read-only mode, while configuration changes required separate Grafana administrative authorization, independent of the application's access control mechanism. This study adopted a descriptive case study approach, using retrospective analysis of the design and implementation of the five dashboards, guided by the principles of Design Science Research. The findings indicate that, at a structural level, all five dashboards addressed the initial monitoring requirements by providing a centralized access point that had not been available prior to their development. However, their impact on procurement efficiency could not be quantitatively measured within the study period. The study also identified implementation limitations in several composite score formulas compared with their original designs. These discrepancies should be considered before the dashboard metrics are used as a basis for more formal decision-making.