Step 1: Select Universities

1. Go to the Define Cohorts tab.
2. Define a Target Cohort. E.g., select a specific Mission Group in the sidebar.
3. Click the Select All Filtered button in the main panel.

Step 2: Choose a View

Key Financial Indicators Tab

Automatically displays a performance heatmap for your selected cohort. Click headers to sort by best/worst performance.

Trends Tab

1. Select Variable: Click a metric in the menu tree.
2. Visualisation: Click this tab to view the line chart.

Note: See the HESA User Guide for details on specific finance tables.

Correlations Tab

1. Select Variables: Choose metrics for the X-Axis and Y-Axis.
2. Visualisation: Click this tab to view the scatter plot.

The Define Cohorts tab is the control center for your analysis. Its purpose is to let you build custom groups of universities to analyse. The choices you make here determine the data used in every other chart and table in the dashboard.

This tab allows you to create two distinct groups:

1. Target Cohort: The primary group you want to analyse (e.g., your university and its peers).
2. Benchmark Cohort: An optional second group for comparison (e.g., the wider sector or a different mission group).

The Sidebar: Filtering Your Data

Use the sidebar on the left to narrow down the list of universities available for selection.

• Mission Groups: Filter by affiliation (e.g., Russell Group, MillionPlus). Use the “All” or “None” links to quickly toggle groups.
• Reference Year: Select the academic year you wish the data sliders to be based on.
• Missing Data: Use the “Include missing data (N/A)” checkbox to decide if universities with incomplete records should remain in the list when using the data sliders.
• Data Sliders: Refine your search by institution size and financial health:
  • Total Income: Filter by total revenue (in £ millions).
  • Surplus/Deficit: Filter by financial performance (in £ millions).
  • Total Students: Filter by the total student population.
• If you ever want to return to the original default view, click the red Reset Filters button at the bottom of the sidebar.

The Main Panel: Selection for Analysis

Once you have applied your filters, the results appear in the table on the right. Crucially, simply filtering does not include universities in your analysis—you must explicitly select them:

• Manual Selection: Tick the checkboxes next to individual universities. Use the search bar to find specific universities by name.
• Bulk Selection: Click the “Select All Filtered” button to include everyone currently visible in the table.

After selecting universities:

• Review Summary: The colored boxes at the top provide a snapshot of the group you are building (Count, Average Income, Average Surplus, etc.).
• Download: Click Download Selected to save a CSV file containing only the universities you have currently ticked.

Setting a Benchmark

If you wish to compare your Target group against others, switch to the Benchmark Cohort tab. Defining a Benchmark Cohort will allow you to:

• Scale the “Key Financial Indicators” heatmap based on the Benchmark Cohort.
• Display the median and interquartile range of the Benchmark Cohort in the “Trends” plot.

To define a Benchmark Cohort, click on the tab Benchmark Cohort (Optional) and repeat the filtering and selection steps as described above.

Quick Sync: If you want your Benchmark Cohort to be based on your Target Cohort, simply click “Copy Target Settings”.

The Key Financial Indicators (KFI) tab provides a visual overview of university financial performance. It allows you to quickly identify strengths, weaknesses, and trends relative to peers using HESA’s Key Financial Indicators.

Overview

This dashboard uses a Heatmap visualisation. Instead of just showing numbers, the table uses colour to indicate performance:

• Green: Indicates a “strong” or favourable position relative to the group (e.g., high surplus, low external borrowing).
• Red: Indicates a “weaker” or cautionary position (e.g., low liquidity, high staff costs).

Note: The system understands KFI “polarity.” For metrics where lower numbers are better (like Staff Costs or External Borrowing), a lower number will appear Green and a higher number will appear Red.

View Modes

You can switch between two different perspectives using the “View Mode” toggle in the sidebar:

• Snapshot (Universities × Metrics):
  • What it does: Shows all financial metrics for a single academic year.
  • Use case: “How did the Russell Group perform across the board in 2023/24?”
• Trend (Universities × Years):
  • What it does: Shows one financial metric across multiple years.
  • Use case: “Is the group’s external borrowing increasing or decreasing?”

Understanding the Data

• Each cell in the table contains two pieces of information:
  • The Value: The actual financial ratio (e.g., 5.4% or 120 days).
  • The Rank: A small number in parentheses, e.g., (3). This indicates where that university ranks within the selected cohort. A rank of (1) is always the “best” performing institution for that metric.
• Metric Definitions: Hover your mouse over the column headers in Snapshot Mode to see the full definition of the metric.
• Data Range: Underneath each column header, you will see a range (e.g., [-5.2 – 12.4]). This tells you the minimum and maximum values used to generate the color scale for that specific column.
• University Names: The table uses abbreviated names (e.g., “LSE”) to save space. Hover over the abbreviation to see the full legal name of the provider.

Interactive Features

Filtering & Searching

By default, the table lists every university in your Target Cohort. To compare specific institutions side-by-side:

1. Go to the search box above the table.
2. Type a name (e.g., “Oxford”) or an abbreviation (e.g., “UCL”).
3. Select the universities you want to isolate.
4. The heatmap will filter to show only your selection, making direct comparison easy.

Sorting

Click Column Headers: Click on any column header (e.g., “Staff Costs”) to sort the table.

Handling Outliers (Deactivating Cells)

Sometimes, one university might have an extreme value (an “outlier”) that skews the colour scale, making all other universities look the same colour.

• Action: Click directly on a cell to “deactivate” it.
• Result: The cell will turn grey, and the colour scale (Green/Red limits) will instantly recalculate for the remaining universities. This allows you to see the nuance among the rest of the group.
• Restore: Click the grey cell again to reactivate it.

Benchmark Settings

If you have selected a Benchmark Cohort, additional options will appear in the sidebar:

• Colour Scale Reference: Decides which group determines the “Green” and “Red” extremes.
  • Target Cohort: The colors are scaled based on the minimum and maximum values of the universities currently in your Target Cohort.
  • Benchmark Cohort: The colors are scaled based on the Benchmark Cohort. This is useful to see how your selected universities compare to the wider sector.
• Basis for Ranks: Decides who you are ranked against.
  • Target Cohort: Rank (1) means you are the best among the current Target Cohort.
  • Benchmark Cohort: Rank (1) means you are the best among the entire Benchmark Cohort.

Methodology Note

This dashboard focuses on operational clarity. Therefore:

• Pension Adjustments: All metrics exclude pension adjustments to remove non-cash accounting volatility and focus on underlying financial performance.
• Excluded Metrics: Certain HESA KFIs (e.g., Current Ratio, General Funds) have been omitted to avoid redundancy and improve clarity.

Exporting

You can download the currently visible data (including your custom sort order and ranks) by clicking the Download Table (CSV) button in the sidebar.

The Trends tab is designed to help you visualize how university finances change over time. It allows you to compare a specific group of “Target” universities against each other, or against a broader Benchmark Cohort, using various financial metrics.

Select Variable Tab

To generate a chart, follow these steps in the “Select Variable” tab:

Step 1: Choose a Source Table

Use the dropdown menu labeled “Select Source Table” to choose the broad category of finance you are interested in (e.g., Table 1 - Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income and Expenditure). The content of the specific tables is explained on the HESA finance data user guide page.

Step 2: Navigate the Hierarchy

Use the hierarchical tree to drill down into specific financial tables (e.g., Table 1 > Income > Tuition fees and education contracts).

• Expand/Collapse: Use the buttons to open or close all folders, or click on the plus signs next to folder names to open individual folders.
• Search: Type in the search bar (e.g., “Tuition”) to instantly find specific variables.
• Select: Click on a specific sub-variable (e.g., Total Tuition Fees) to load the data.

Visualisation Tab

Once a variable is selected, switch to the “Visualisation” panel to view and refine your chart.

Note: This dashboard is optimised for larger screens (desktop/laptop). The chart layout is sized to fit the largest mission group (the Russell Group). Selecting significantly more universities simultaneously may result in overcrowding and reduced readability.

Sidebar

Unit Selection

Comparisons between large and small universities can be misleading if you only look at raw numbers. Use the Unit selector to normalise the data:

• Raw Values: Shows the actual value (e.g., £ millions). Good for seeing absolute scale.
• Per Student FTE: Divides the value by the number of Full-Time Equivalent students. Useful for comparing “spend per student.”
• Per Staff FTE: Divides the value by the number of Full-Time Equivalent staff.
• Percentage of Total Income/Expenditure: Shows the value as a share of the university’s total finances. Useful for understanding financial priorities (e.g., “What % of income comes from research?”).

Benchmark Settings

(Visible only if a Benchmark Cohort is selected.)

You can add context to your chart by displaying the central tendency of your cohorts.

• Basis for Median and Interquartile Range (IQR):
  • Target Cohort: Calculates statistics based only on the specific universities in your Target Cohort.
  • Benchmark Cohort: Calculates statistics based on your Benchmark Cohort. This is useful for seeing how your target universities perform relative to the wider sector.

Show Hover Tooltips

This checkbox controls the interactive popup boxes that appear when you move your mouse cursor over the chart.

• When Checked (Default): A tooltip appears on hover, displaying precise details for that data point.
• When Unchecked: The tooltips are disabled. This is useful if you want to ensure the chart remains unobstructed by popup boxes.

Main panel

Understanding the Chart

The chart displays trends over academic years.

• Colored Lines: Each solid line represents one of your Target Universities.
• Dashed Black Line (Median): This represents the middle value of the cohort. Half of the universities lie above this line, and half lie below.
• Grey Shaded Area (Interquartile Range - IQR): This area represents the “middle 50%” of the chosen cohort.

Interactive Chart Features

The chart is interactive to help you explore the data:

• Hover: Move your mouse over the plot to see the university names and values for a given year.
• Zoom: Use the sliders at the bottom and the left side of the chart to zoom in on specific years or values, respectively.
• Legend: Click on a university’s name in the legend (right side) to hide or show its line. Hover over a name to isolate just that university.
• Download: Click the “Save as Image” camera icon (top right of the chart) to download a .png file.

The Correlations tab is designed to help you visualize the relationship between two different financial variables. It allows you to plot one metric against another to identify patterns or spot outliers.

Select Variables Tab

To generate a chart, you must configure the variables for the axes independently. The selection area is divided into three collapsible sections:

1. X-Axis Variable: Determines the horizontal axis.
2. Y-Axis Variable: Determines the vertical axis.
3. Bubble Size (Optional): Determines the size of the dots.

To select your data, click on a panel to expand it, and then follow the steps below inside each panel:

Step 1: Choose a Source Table

Use the dropdown menu labeled “Source Table” to choose the broad category of finance you are interested in for this specific axis (e.g., Table 1 - Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income and Expenditure).

Note: You can pick different source tables for the X-axis and the Y-axis.

Step 2: Navigate the Hierarchy

Use the hierarchical tree below the dropdown to drill down into the specific financial metrics.

• Expand/Collapse: Use the buttons to open or close all folders, or click on the triangles next to folder names to open individual folders.
• Search: Type in the search bar (e.g., “Tuition”) to instantly find specific variables within the tree.
• Select: Click on a specific sub-variable to select it.

Visualisation Tab

Once your variables are selected, switch to the “Visualisation” panel to view and refine your chart.

Sidebar

Academic Year

Unlike the Trends tab, which shows history, the Correlations tab looks at a specific snapshot in time. Use the Academic Year selector to choose which financial year to analyse.

Unit Selection

Comparisons between large and small universities can be misleading if you only look at raw numbers. Use the Data Units selectors to normalise the data for the X and Y axes independently:

• Raw Values: Shows the actual value (e.g., £ millions). Good for seeing absolute scale.
• Per Student FTE: Divides the value by the number of Full-Time Equivalent students. Useful for comparing “spend per student.”
• Per Staff FTE: Divides the value by the number of Full-Time Equivalent staff.
• Percentage of Total Income/Expenditure: Shows the value as a share of the university’s total finances. Useful for understanding financial priorities (e.g., “What % of income comes from research?”).

Analysis Tools

These controls help you interpret the scatter plot:

• Show Hover Tooltips: Controls the popup boxes that appear when you move your mouse cursor over a dot. Uncheck this if you want a cleaner view.
• Show Trend Line: Adds a dashed line of best fit. This helps you identify if there is a general correlation between your two variables.
• Log X/Log Y: Switches the axes to a logarithmic scale.

Main panel

Understanding the Chart

The chart displays a scatter plot of your selected universities.

• Dots: Each dot represents one university.
• Size: If a “Bubble Size” variable was selected, larger dots represent higher values for the bubble size variable.

Interactive Chart Features

The chart is interactive to help you explore the data:

• Hover: Move your mouse over a dot to see the university name and the exact values for the X, Y, and Size variables.
• Box Zoom (top right): Click and drag your mouse to draw a box around a specific cluster of universities to zoom in.
• Slider Zoom: Use the sliders at the bottom and the left side of the chart to zoom in.
• Legend: Click on a university’s name in the legend to hide or show its dot. Hover over a name to highlight just that university.
• Download: Click the “Save as Image” camera icon (top right of the chart) to download a .png file.