What is a dashboard?¶

A dashboard is a grid of cards that puts related numbers on one page: Site health, Support this week, Sales. Each card shows a metric, and the page as a whole answers "how are we doing?" at a glance.

What it represents¶

A dashboard is a collection. It holds no data of its own: every card re-reads its metric each time the page opens, so what you see is current. Some cards are there for information (traffic, a calendar, a note). Others are numbers you track closely, coloured by their rules so a problem stands out.

Think of it as an arrangement. The metrics define the numbers, the components decide how each looks, and the dashboard decides which ones sit together and where.

Reading one¶

• The period bar (top left) narrows every card that depends on time: Today, This week, Last week, This month and more. A card whose metric has no date ignores it.
• Tap a number to open the rows behind it, and download them as CSV. On a split or a chart, each group or bar opens its own rows.
• The small grey change under a number compares it with the period before. It's grey on purpose: whether up is good depends on the metric.
• Restricted on a card means the dashboard is shared with you but that card's data isn't.
• A dashboard set to refresh reloads its cards on its own. Refresh does it now.

How it's set up¶

Dashboards → New dashboard asks for a name, who can see it, the period it opens on and whether it refreshes by itself. Then, on the dashboard, choose Edit layout:

1. Add card and pick a type: a Saved card from Components, or a Single stat, Gauge, Goals, Calendar, Menu, Info card or Note made on the spot. Charts and grouped stats are built under Components.
2. Drag cards to move them, and drag a corner to resize. The grid is twelve columns wide.
3. Remove takes a card off. Its metric stays.
4. Save layout, or Cancel to throw the changes away.

Settings changes the name, picture, tags, default period and refresh, and lists every card with its design, metric and current value.

You don't have to rearrange to change one card. Point at it and open the ⋯ at its corner: Edit card opens its builder right there, over the dashboard, and Remove takes it off.

How to use it¶

• Open it in a meeting, on Last week rather than This week: a week still running looks low for any number that only goes up.
• Put it on a wall. Add it to a playlist and it rotates with other dashboards and goal lists.
• Start from one you have. Duplicate opens a copy to change. On the copy, a card's Make a unique copy gives it its own metric, so its filter can change without touching the original.
• Show it on another page of your project with {% dashboard "slug" %} in a template.
• Ask an agent for one. A dashboard's layout is stored as text, so an agent can build the metrics, the cards and the layout from a description.

Good to know¶

• Personal or shared. A personal dashboard is yours. A shared one opens for everyone signed in, and staff edit it. Only staff can make those.
• Share your own. Share on a personal dashboard lets everyone who can sign in open it, or people you name (each gets a notification). You still edit it; they read its cards as you do, and find it under Shared with you on My dashboards.
• Sharing a dashboard doesn't share its data. Each dataset has its own access rule, so the same dashboard can show numbers to one person and restricted to another.
• A shared dashboard holds only shared metrics and cards. A personal one can hold shared ones and your own.
• My dashboards lists the ones you made, and the ones shared with you. The Dashboards overview shows every one you can open.
• Deleting a dashboard leaves its metrics and saved cards alone.