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Building Dashboards

Building Dashboards

Building Dashboards 2

New Dashboard​

To create a new dashboard, click on the New button in the portal and select New Dashboard. Under Select Layout for Dashboard, pick one of the layout templates with predefined cards (e.g. 2x2, 3x3, one wide card over two or three smaller ones), or choose Build from scratch..., as shown below.

New Dashboard

Note: the Consumer role does not have access to create new dashboards, and thus will not see the New Dashboard button. Check your role from My Account.

Dashboard Design​

To build a dashboard, add Cards to the design work area and then add content (charts, tables, etc.) to each card. In design mode, you can move cards by dragging them, or resize them by dragging their edges. The dashboard title can be changed by clicking on the title text.

Dashboard Design

Toolbar​

The dashboard toolbar has:

  • Save - Save or Save As...
  • Share - see Share
  • Favorite - add the dashboard to your favorites
  • Design - enter design mode, which allows you to add, move, resize, and edit cards (admins and authors)

In design mode, the toolbar also has:

  • Add Card - add a Report, Filter Panel, or Rich Text card
  • Settings - dashboard settings:
    • URL Slug - the identifier that appears in the browser URL
    • Dashboard Background Color, Font Color, and Tile Border Color
    • Dashboard Specifications - click Edit Specs to view or edit the dashboard specification as JSON

Embedded dashboards do not show Save, Favorite, or Design.

The dashboard toolbar

The toolbar Share button allows saved dashboards to be shared as a Link or Bookmark Link, and embedded in other sites using the Embed Link. If your admin has enabled downloads, you can also Download PDF or Download Image.

Share (PDF, Image, Link) or Embed

Cards​

Cards are panels that hold charts, tables, filters, or other content such as rich text/html. If you selected a layout template when you first created the dashboard, then blank cards will already be in the design work area. Otherwise, add cards with Add Card in the Toolbar. New blank cards look like this:

Dashboard Cards

Report​

Report cards allow you to add report objects such as charts and tables to the dashboard. Click the Add Content (Add Content to Card) button in the middle of the card to add new content to the card. You can always edit the content in the future from the Card Toolbar edit button.

Clicking the Add or Edit buttons will open the Card Designer (shown below), which allows you to design new content from a New Analysis or browse Existing Content (reports, analyses, and datasets). Double-click a report to open it for designing. Once you're done designing your content, click Done and it will be added to the dashboard.

Card Designer

Important - when you use existing content on a dashboard card, any modifications will NOT affect the existing report. Also, any modifications to the existing report will not affect the dashboard content item.

Filter Panel​

Filter panels are cards that contain global filters. Global filters are applied to the data in every card on the dashboard. A dashboard can have one filter panel. Like regular cards, filter panels can be resized and moved to anywhere on the dashboard, and the filters stack vertically when the panel is taller than it is wide.

Click the filter icon in the middle of a new filter panel to open Filter Panel Configuration, where you choose the Data Model for the filters, and can Disable Filter Cascading or use Full Width. If the dashboard has no report cards yet, you'll be asked to select a data model first. When you add a report card that uses the same data model, the global filters are applied to it automatically.

Filter Panel

Note - if a filter card does not exist in the dashboard, then the filter panel will display in the dashboard header.

Rich Text​

Rich Text cards allow you to design with advanced text and image features to get a page design exactly as you like. Click the button in the middle of the card to open the text editor.

Rich Text

Card Toolbar​

The card toolbar appears in the top-right of a card when you hover your cursor over the card. The options available are:

  • Card Toolbar New Window - opens the card in a new window/tab (report cards)
  • Card Toolbar Filters - shows filters applied to the card (report cards)
  • Card Toolbar Edit - edit the card content, or add new content (design mode)
  • Card Toolbar Delete - removes the card from the dashboard (design mode)

In design mode, the filters list lets you remove a global filter from that card only.

Card Toolbar Filters Detail

Using Dashboards​

When running dashboards, you are no longer in Design Mode. Although you can no longer move, resize, or edit cards, there are many interactions available.

In the top-right of each card, you can click the Card in New Window New Window button in the card toolbar, which opens the card in a new tab.

Next to the Open in New Window icon, the filter icon allows you to quickly see what filters are applied to the specific card.

You can interact with the visualization just like any other report by hovering, clicking, and so on. Click a value in a chart or legend to Keep or Exclude it, or drill. Filters you add on one card are applied to every other card on the dashboard.

Schedule Delivery​

You can schedule email delivery of dashboards from the FlexIt Portal by following these steps:

  1. Find the report or dashboard in the FlexIt Portal folders
  2. Click the ellipsis on the right of the report, or right-click the report
  3. Select Schedule
  4. Enter the schedule: One Time, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, or Cron Format, with start and end dates
  5. Choose who to deliver it to (Email Me, Email Others), the File Attachments (CSV data, plus PDF and image when downloads are enabled), and whether to only send if data is returned
  6. Click Save and the schedule is set