Revised question format:
I want to make a dashboard to show executives particular data views from a list. They don't have time to learn about views. The explanations I have seen for making dashboards all involve either Excel uploads or using SPD.
Agency settings have made it impossible to upload Excel documents into the SharePoint environment. Access to SPD has also been restricted as a matter of policy.
I need an OOTB solution to producing an appropriate solution in SP2013, please.
The BEST way would be using PowerBI in my opinion, but that would require a license for PowerBI in order to embed it onto a SharePoint page (and having it update automatically).
The only other option I can see would be to write a custom script to utilize google charts, but - and this could be a very big but - in order for it to work you will have to share the data with Google.
To be honest I can't really see any good OOTB way that does not either compromise security/involve custom coding or require you to shred out money on another license.
