Build Your First Impact Dashboard in R (Even If You’ve Never Shipped a Shiny App)

A low-friction path to a working dashboard that shows real program results

Dashboards
R
Monitoring & Evaluation
Author

Nichodemus Amollo

Published

November 14, 2025

Why Start with a Simple Dashboard

You don’t need a complex app:

  • 2–3 tabs
  • 5–7 key indicators
  • Clear filters (date, geography, facility)

Your goal is to:

  • Show you can move from static charts to interactive tools
  • Give program teams something they can actually use

A Minimal Architecture

  • Data:
    • A clean table of events/visits
    • A lookup table for facilities/geographies
  • R:
    • shiny or flexdashboard
    • dplyr + ggplot2

Tabs:

  1. Overview
  2. Trends
  3. Disaggregation

Portfolio Tip

Host your dashboard:

  • On shinyapps.io (free tier)
  • Or publish screenshots + code on GitHub

Include in your CV:

“Built and deployed an interactive dashboard showing X indicators across Y facilities, used by Z stakeholders for quarterly review.”

This single project can dramatically elevate your profile as a junior analyst or M&E specialist.