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Building a Dashboard

A BI dashboard puts the charts and figures a team looks at every day on one screen. Charts are added from the Report Builder, arranged on the dashboard, and shared with security groups; each viewer sees the figures their own permissions allow, and can click through to the records behind any chart.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Dashboards:

  • BI Dashboards — create, arrange and share dashboards

Admin Panel → Reporting:

  • Dashboards — the same screen for people who are not architects, once granted

Architect Panel → Data:

  • Report Builder — where charts are built and added to a dashboard

Creating a dashboard

  1. Open BI dashboards and click New dashboard. Name it when asked.
  2. In the Report Builder, build a Totals report, open the Chart tab and click Add to dashboard. Choose the dashboard and type the Title on the dashboard. Repeat for each chart. See Charts in the Report Builder.
  3. Back on the dashboard, click Arrange to lay the charts out, then Done. Remove a chart with the × on its tile.
  4. Click Sharing to let others see it.

Charts cannot be added from the dashboard screen itself, nor from Explore, whatever an empty dashboard's message suggests: use Add to dashboard in the Report Builder. A tab holds up to 40 charts.

Sharing

Sharing opens "Who can see this dashboard". It lists current shares ("Only you." when there are none). Choose a group in Share with, choose what they Can do, and click Share:

  • view: see the dashboard.
  • edit: also Rename and Arrange.
  • manage: also Sharing and Delete.

The owner and architects can always manage. Every chart re-runs as the viewer, so sharing a dashboard never shares data the viewer could not otherwise see.

Using a dashboard

  • Dashboard and Tab pickers switch between dashboards and their tabs.
  • Show the records on a chart (or clicking the number on a single figure) lists up to 500 records behind it; click one to open it.
  • Where cross-filtering is on, clicking a point filters the rest of the page and shows a removable chip.
  • Tiles may show "Cached" when a stored result is being shown.

Settings kept in datastores

Some settings have no control on the dashboard screen yet and are changed under Data → Datastores: extra tabs in BI Dashboard Tabs; the filter bar in the Dashboard Filters field of BI Dashboards; and, per chart in BI Widgets, Cross-Filter, Drill Down and Cache (seconds) (0, the default, recalculates every time).

Keeping it fast

Each chart runs its query when the dashboard opens. Keep dashboards to the charts people use, and consider a cache time on heavy charts that do not need to be up to the minute. The Business Intelligence group in Site Settings sets the maximum rows returned (5,000 by default) and when to warn about very large source tables. See Keeping Dashboards Fast.

What goes wrong and how to tell

  • "You can view this dashboard but not change it.": ask a manager of it for edit rights.
  • "That dashboard does not exist, or it has not been shared with you."
  • "Drill-down is switched off for this chart.": turn on Drill Down for that chart in BI Widgets.
  • "A tab can hold 40 charts. Add another tab."
  • Add to dashboard is missing in the Report Builder: you cannot edit any dashboard yet.

Worked example

A repairs manager creates "Repairs overview" and, from the Report Builder, adds four charts: open jobs by trade, jobs completed by week, a single figure for overdue jobs, and average days to complete by contractor. They arrange them with the single figure top left, share the dashboard with the Repairs Supervisors group as view, and with their deputy's group as edit. A supervisor clicks Show the records on the overdue figure each morning and works through the list.

Recommendations

  • Build around decisions: one dashboard per team or meeting.
  • Lead with a single figure for the number that matters most.
  • Share as view by default; give edit to one or two people.
  • Save reports before adding them, so improvements flow through.