Dashboards
A dashboard is several answers on one screen. Each tile reads from a report and draws its result as a number, a chart or a table.
A dashboard never holds data of its own. Every figure on it comes from a report. That one fact explains most of what follows — including why a wrong number is almost never a dashboard problem.
What they are for
Dashboards answer the questions somebody asks every morning. If a question is asked once, run a report. If it is asked daily by several people, it belongs on a dashboard.
| Page | Covers |
|---|---|
| Viewing | Opening one, reading it, refreshing |
| The builder | Adding and arranging tiles |
| Tiles | The six kinds and when to use each |
| Filters | Narrowing every tile at once |
| Settings | Grid, themes, and whose data it counts |
The one setting that is worth understanding first
View Dashboard As decides whose records the dashboard counts — each viewer's own, or everybody's. Getting it wrong produces numbers that look entirely plausible and are completely wrong, with no error anywhere.
Settings covers it properly. If you build dashboards, read that page before you share one.