The short answer
A storm event dashboard should answer four questions at a glance: where your crews are, what work is open, what has been completed and documented, and what it is costing you. Everything on the screen should help a storm manager make a decision in the next few hours. Leave off vanity totals, raw data tables, and any metric nobody acts on during the event.
Key takeaways
- Build the dashboard around decisions, not data. If a number does not change what someone does today, move it to a report.
- Crew location and status, open work, documentation completeness, and cost burn are the four core views.
- Track documentation during the event, not after it. Missing paperwork is what slows closeout and billing.
- One source of truth beats five spreadsheets. Connect timesheets, rosters, and work orders before you design charts.
- Keep it readable on a phone. Storm managers are rarely at a desk.
When a major storm rolls through, everyone wants a dashboard. The utility wants to know when power comes back. The contractor wants to know where its crews are and whether they will get paid. Too often the result is a screen full of totals that look impressive and answer none of those questions.
Storms are where most outage time comes from. The U.S. Energy Information Administration found that customers averaged about five and one-half hours of power interruptions in 2022, while the average excluding major events has held at around two hours since 2013. When the big events drive the numbers, the dashboard you run during those events matters.
What is a storm event dashboard?
A storm event dashboard is a live view of a single restoration event that shows crews, work, documentation, and cost in one place. It is built for the people running the event, such as storm managers, dispatchers, and operations leaders, not for a monthly board meeting.
That distinction matters. A monthly report can be dense and historical. A storm dashboard has to be fast, current, and obvious, because the people reading it are making calls on lodging, crew moves, and mutual assistance requests in real time.
What should a storm dashboard show?
Four views cover almost every decision during an event. Start here and add only what your team asks for.
| View | What it shows | The decision it supports |
|---|---|---|
| Crews and status | Every crew, its location, its current assignment, and hours worked today | Where to send the next crew, and who is close to hour limits |
| Open work | Assigned, in progress, and unassigned work by area and priority | Where the backlog is building and what to tackle next |
| Documentation | Timesheets, rosters, and job records that are complete, missing, or rejected | Who needs to fix paperwork today, before memories fade |
| Cost burn | Labor, equipment, lodging, and meals to date against the estimate | Whether the event is on track and what to flag to the customer |
If you only build one of these well, build documentation. It is the view that teams skip during the event and pay for later. We wrote about that cost in the post-storm closeout scramble, and what it really costs you.
What should you leave off a storm dashboard?
Leave off anything that does not lead to an action during the event. Clutter slows people down at exactly the moment they need speed.
- Vanity totals. “Total hours worked this event” is nice to know but rarely changes a decision. Put it in the closeout report.
- Raw data tables. A 400-row timesheet export is not a dashboard. Summarize it and link to the detail.
- Too many charts. If the screen needs scrolling on a laptop, it is too long for a phone.
- Metrics with no owner. Every number on the screen should belong to someone who will act on it.
- Stale data. A number from yesterday morning is worse than no number, because people trust it.
Running storm work on spreadsheets and phone calls? Book a working session and we will map what your dashboard should show.
Where does the data for a storm dashboard come from?
The data comes from the systems you already use: crew rosters, timesheets, work orders, and expense records. The hard part is not the chart. It is getting those sources to agree.
Most storm organizations run each of those in a different place, often a mix of spreadsheets, a field app, an email inbox, and the customer’s portal. Before anyone designs a dashboard, those sources need a shared crew ID, a shared event ID, and a regular refresh. That is a data and BI problem first and a design problem second.
Once the data is connected, a tool like Power BI can refresh views every few minutes. If paperwork itself is the bottleneck, automation can read scanned timesheets and flag missing fields before they reach the dashboard.
Who should use a storm event dashboard?
Storm managers, dispatchers, operations leaders, and the billing team should all use the same dashboard, each looking at a different view. One shared screen keeps everyone working from the same numbers.
- Storm managers watch crews, open work, and hour limits.
- Dispatchers watch unassigned work and crew availability.
- Billing and finance watch documentation completeness and cost burn.
- Leadership watches cost against estimate and any issues that need a call to the customer.
How do you get started without a big project?
Start with one event and one view. Pick the next storm, connect rosters and timesheets, and build only the documentation view. Use it, collect feedback, and add the next view after the event.
This keeps the first version small enough to finish before the season and useful enough that people actually open it. It also shows you which data sources need the most cleanup, which is the real work. Our working process follows the same pattern: find the bottleneck, fix it, then measure.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most important metric on a storm dashboard?
Documentation completeness is often the most important, because it controls how fast you can close out and bill the event. Crew status matters most for live decisions, but missing timesheets and rosters are what turn a two-week closeout into a two-month one. Track it daily, by crew, during the event.
Can Power BI be used for a storm event dashboard?
Yes. Power BI works well for storm dashboards once the underlying data is connected and refreshed on a schedule. The tool is rarely the hard part. The work is linking rosters, timesheets, work orders, and expenses with shared crew and event IDs so every view agrees.
How often should a storm dashboard refresh?
For crews and open work, aim for every 15 to 30 minutes during active restoration. Documentation and cost views can refresh a few times a day. The right answer depends on how often your source systems update. A dashboard can only be as current as the data feeding it.
Should utilities and contractors use the same storm dashboard?
They usually need different views of the same event. A utility focuses on restoration progress and customer impact. A contractor focuses on crews, documentation, and getting paid. Sharing a common set of crew and work data between them reduces disputes at closeout and speeds up invoice approval.
What is the difference between a storm dashboard and a storm report?
A storm dashboard is a live tool for decisions during the event. A storm report is a summary written after the event for billing, review, and planning. Keep totals and history in the report, and keep the dashboard focused on what someone needs to act on right now.
