In the complex world of commercial real estate, data is essential to developing strategy and driving growth. As the leading ERP system, Yardi is often the backbone of a real estate firm’s data, and unlocking the value from this trove of Yardi data is crucial for asset managers, BI developers, and executives who need insights to make informed decisions. Creating compelling real estate data dashboards from Yardi isn’t always turnkey. Successful teams know that simply dumping data onto charts isn’t enough. Instead, you must ensure those visuals are meaningful, accurate, and actionable.
These five essential best practices will help you unlock more value from your Yardi system and create impactful real estate data dashboards that drive strategic decision-making:
1. Ensure Data Quality
There’s a reason garbage in, garbage out is the first rule of data analytics. Unreliable data will inevitably produce unreliable results! Your Yardi ecosystem may contain years of property, lease, and financial information, but your dashboards will mislead rather than inform if that data is incomplete or error-ridden.
Real estate companies thrive on using data to make better decisions, but what if the data is unreliable? For example, inaccurate lease dates or missing rent figures can throw off key metrics. Auditing and cleaning your Yardi data before diving into real estate data dashboard building is critical. Check for inconsistencies and establish processes to govern data entry appropriately.
As one data expert put it, you cannot have good analysis without good data. Investing time in data quality — validating entries, standardizing formats, and filling gaps — will pay off by ensuring your dashboard insights are trustworthy.
Bottom line: A brilliant dashboard built on bad data is a sure-fire way to base critical decision-making on misleading information.
2. Unify Your Data Sources
Yardi data is rich, but it is only one piece of the puzzle. The most powerful real estate data dashboards often combine Yardi information with other sources to provide context and a 360-degree view. Leasing activity might live in a CRM system, market benchmarks from a research provider, energy usage in a sustainability app, and budget forecasts in a tool like Argus. If these remain siloed, establishing the whole picture is labor-intensive, costly and error-prone. For a single property — let alone a portfolio — aggregating data from multiple systems can be time-consuming and error-prone.
Integrating Yardi with your other key data sources eliminates manual cross-checking and uncovers insights that would not surface in isolation. For example, combining Yardi’s actual financials with Argus forecast data lets you compare budget vs. actual performance and get a complete picture of your portfolio. Likewise, blending occupancy data from Yardi with market vacancy rates from a service like NCREIF can contextualize whether your property is truly outperforming the market or not. Modern data platforms, like DataFreedom, specialize in aggregating Yardi data with external sources, making this unification easier.
Bottom line: Don’t let your CRE data live in a vacuum. Pair your Yardi data with critical external sources, such as Argus, VTS, and IEX, to unlock richer insights and power smarter decisions.
3. Leverage Pre-Built Templates.
You do not have to begin every report from a blank canvas. Over our years of real estate reporting, we’ve learned that specific layouts and metrics have proven especially effective. So why reinvent the wheel? Starting with a well-designed template can save weeks of work and help your team visualize the end product early on. It also minimizes friction, because end-users see familiar report formats rather than completely novel designs.
Many BI solutions and third-party platforms offer libraries of real estate dashboard templates. For instance, an ideal analytics tool will have a rich library of pre-built reports to launch your efforts. DataFreedom provides hundreds of ready-to-use templates covering everything from rent roll summaries to NOI variance analysis, all of which can be tailored to your needs. By leveraging these proven templates, you ensure your report adheres to best practices regarding metric calculations and layout while allowing you to customize the details to fit your portfolio. The result is a faster development cycle and a higher chance that users will adopt the final dashboard.
Bottom line: Don’t build every real estate data dashboard from scratch if you don’t have to. Instead, use pre-built real estate data dashboard and report templates to jumpstart your data journey.
4. Choose Relevant KPIs
When it comes to real estate data dashboards, focus is your friend. A common mistake is overloading a dashboard with every possible metric, which can obscure the insights that truly matter. Instead, be selective and prioritize the key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your organization’s goals and that your stakeholders care about most.
In real estate, some metrics consistently rise to the top: Net Operating Income (NOI) reveals property profitability and operational efficiency, and occupancy rate shows how well space is filled, which directly drives revenue. Tenant Exposure shows inherent risks in the portfolio, and lease expiration exposure highlights upcoming risks to cash flow. Other essential metrics might include rental collections, tenant retention rates, budget variances, and maintenance response times. The point is to zero in on the handful that reflect success or trouble.
An asset manager should ask, “What metrics are we judged on each quarter?” Or “What do I need to do today, tomorrow and next week?” Make the answers to these questions the stars of the dashboard. For example, if investors are keenly watching NOI and occupancy, those should feature prominently, perhaps with visual cues if they fall below target. On the other hand, avoid vanity metrics or data points that aren’t actionable.
Every chart or table should have a purpose. By curating your dashboards to only the most relevant KPIs, you make it easier for busy executives to glean insights at a glance.
Bottom line: A concise dashboard highlighting the right metrics is far more effective than a cluttered one that tracks everything under the sun.
5. Design User-Friendly Dashboards
Even with high-quality, well-integrated data and all the right metrics, a real estate data dashboard can flop if poorly arranged. In short, design can make the difference between confusion and clarity.
Start by prioritizing simplicity and clarity in your design. A cluttered dashboard can overwhelm users and obscure the insights it is meant to deliver. Use a clean layout with a sensible flow. For example, group related metrics together and highlight the most critical figures at the top. Choose the right visualization for each data type, such as a trend line for occupancy over time, a bar chart for comparing NOI across properties, and a donut for expense breakdown. Use color and labels thoughtfully for accessibility, sticking to a consistent palette. For example, did you know that approximately 1 in 12 males and 1 in 200 females have some form of color vision deficiency?
One helpful guideline in dashboard design is the five-second rule: A viewer should understand the dashboard’s primary message within about five seconds. If they can’t, it might be too complex. When your COO can open the dashboard and immediately grasp portfolio occupancy or identify a problem property without calling an analyst, you’ve successfully designed a truly effective tool.
Bottom line: User experience is paramount! The goal is to create clear, intuitive visuals that let decision-makers absorb information quickly. Even the best data falls flat if your dashboard isn’t intuitive.
Conclusion
Turning Yardi data into powerful real estate data dashboards can be transformative for your organization. By following these best practices, you set the stage for analytics that drive smarter decisions and positive outcomes.
In a competitive market, unlocking the full value of your Yardi data isn’t just nice to have — it is a must. To learn more about turning your Yardi data into the strategic resource it should be contact DataFreedom today.
