Building a Block
A block is a display type, a datastore, some criteria, and where it sits.
Where to find it
Architect Panel → Dashboards:
- Custom Dashboard Blocks — the blocks themselves
- Dashboard Styles — the styling applied to them
- Shared Dashboard Layout — the arrangement shared across users
Architect Panel → Data:
- Datastores — the data a block draws on
Choose the display type from the question
- How many? — a counter.
- How is it changing? — a chart over time.
- How does it split? — a chart by category.
- Which ones? — a list.
- Do this — a shortcut.
Picking the display first and fitting a question to it is how dashboards end up full of charts nobody reads.
Criteria are where blocks go wrong
A block showing the wrong thing is worse than no block, because people act on it. The commonest errors are a date filter anchored to a fixed date rather than a relative one, and criteria that exclude something nobody realised.
Check the number against a report or a browse view before trusting it — once, at build time, and it will be right thereafter.
Use relative dates
"This month" rather than a fixed range, or the block quietly stops being current and nobody notices, because a number that looks plausible is not questioned.
Keep the title honest
The title is what people believe the number means. "Open cases" that actually excludes one status is a block that will mislead somebody eventually — either widen the criteria or narrow the title.
Make it clickable where you can
A number somebody cares about prompts "which ones?". A block that answers that by taking them to the underlying list is markedly more useful than one that leaves them to find it.
Test as a real viewer
Not as an administrator. Blocks respect permissions, so what you see is not what a caseworker sees — and a block that is empty or wrong for its actual audience is a block that will be ignored.
Keep it cheap
Tight criteria, and be wary of anything scanning a large datastore without a bounded filter. The block runs every time the dashboard opens, for everybody.
Worked example
A counter of cases breaching SLA today uses a relative date, is titled exactly what it counts, links through to the filtered list, and was checked against a browse view giving the same number. Viewed as a caseworker it shows their team's figure, which is what the dashboard is for.
Recommendations
- Pick the display from the question.
- Always use relative dates.
- Verify the number against a report at build time.
- Test as a real viewer, not an administrator.