Reviewing a parenting creator dashboard: two totals, three IDs, one payment

A dashboard should be checked by someone who did not build it. The reviewer needs the workbook, the raw files and a short brief, then runs three tests: rebuild two totals, open three live content IDs and reconcile one commercial amount. Only after that does the dashboard go to its readers.

What to take away

Hand the reviewer a package they can trace

The reviewer needs six tabs and the files behind them. Without the raw extracts, a check can only confirm that the workbook agrees with itself. The tabs are definitions, releases, platform extracts, destination actions, commercial records and quality issues.

Each platform extract should be a read-only file with the platform, report name, timezone, export time and filters recorded. Estimated measures stay labelled as estimates. If geography or demographics are limited, the limitation is stored, not replaced with an assumption.

Before any test, the reviewer reads the measure definitions for an owner, purpose, formula, unit, source, date basis, eligible content and known limitation. A measure missing one of these cannot be rebuilt by anyone else.

Rebuild two totals from the raw files

Choose two totals from the summary and rebuild each from the saved extracts. If a figure differs, check the definition, filters and date basis before blaming the data. A total that cannot be reproduced is a claim, not a result.

Confirm what the date means for each measure: publication, viewing, click, order, invoice or payment. The definition should have been locked for the reporting period, with later changes logged and nothing overwritten. A number pasted from a screenshot, with no extract behind it, fails at once.

Then read the summary cells. They should show the current period, comparison period, absolute difference, percentage difference where the denominator is valid, source status and a note. Check that like formats are compared at the same age after publication and that paid and organic distribution stay separate.

Open three live content IDs

Pick three IDs from the releases tab and open each live URL. The row records the format, adult audience, organic or paid status, commercial relationship, publication time, rights period and live URL. The page that loads should match that row.

The ID itself must not hold a child's name or a private family detail. If a platform title has changed, the content ID should be unchanged and the title history still visible. Every other tab joins to this ID, so one broken link can corrupt several totals.

Reconcile one commercial amount

Commercial records keep contract value, invoice date, cash date, merchant-confirmed orders and any modelled credit as distinct columns. Choose one amount and follow it from contract to invoice to cash. A formula may total each category but should never add them together as if they were the same unit.

Note returns, cancellations, VAT treatment and the reconciliation date next to the amount. The reviewer is not judging whether the deal was good. The question is whether the figure on the page can be traced to a record that someone else can open.

Read the data-quality flags

The destination tab holds tagged sessions and defined actions for the same campaign and window. Google's traffic-source documentation describes UTM source, medium and campaign fields and warns that missing parameters can produce '(not set)' values. The tagging convention should be saved beside the report.

GA4 says in its sampling guide that event-level queries over a property's quota may use a subset and show the percentage in the data-quality icon. The reviewer checks that this status was copied into the period record.

The quality tab logs correction, advertising, caption, privacy, rights and access incidents by severity and resolution. It must not hold unnecessary family information. The ICO's guidance says that personal data shall be adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary for the purposes it is processed for.

Record the verdict

Finish with a decision log: continue, amend, investigate or stop, plus an owner and an evidence due date. The dashboard then supports action without claiming that movement in a chart was caused by the creator. Definitions and metric cards are built in the measurement guide.

Treat the review as voluntary discipline, not accreditation. The Office for Statistics Regulation runs a voluntary application scheme for any organisation that wants to apply the Code of Practice for Statistics, which is written for official statistics.

Before you circulate

Common questions

Why should someone other than the builder review the dashboard?

A builder tends to read their own workbook as correct. A second person who rebuilds two totals from the raw files, opens three live content IDs and reconciles one commercial amount can show whether the figures can be traced, which a re-read by the author cannot.

What does the reviewer do with a commercial amount?

The reviewer follows one amount from contract value to invoice date to cash date and confirms that returns, cancellations, VAT treatment and the reconciliation date are noted. Contract value, cash and modelled credit stay in distinct columns and are never added together as one unit.

What happens after the checks are finished?

The reviewer writes a decision log entry: continue, amend, investigate or stop, with an owner and an evidence due date. The dashboard then supports action without claiming that movement in a chart was caused by the creator.