Reports and dashboards
Reports and dashboards
Who can do this: Edit on the dashboard to build it; Read to view it. Sharing it outside the team also needs Edit on each table it reads. See the .
What it's for
A dashboard is a page of panels: numbers, charts, pivots, tables and notes, drawn live from your tables. Use it for the figures you check every day, such as sales this month, open orders or overdue invoices. Your team sees it in the navigator. You can also show it to portal customers or to the public, but each audience is a separate decision about the data underneath. That is the main thing to understand in this chapter.
Before you start
You need a table (or spreadsheet) with data to read from.
Editing needs Edit on the dashboard. A viewer sees no Edit button.
Dragging and resizing panels needs a wide screen. On a narrow screen the layout is read-only.
No administrator setup is needed for team dashboards.
Steps: build a dashboard
In the navigator, choose New dashboard. The empty page says This dashboard is empty.
Press Start editing (or Edit), then Add. Pick a panel type:
Panel | Shows | Reads from |
|---|---|---|
Metric | One number, optionally a trend line or a half-arc gauge | A data table or a spreadsheet range |
Chart | Bars, lines, areas, pie, donut or funnel | A data table or a spreadsheet range |
Table | Rows of a table, as a Grid or as Cards | A data table |
Pivot | Rows by columns with totals | A data table |
Spreadsheet | A read-only view of sheets (up to 300 by 60 cells per sheet) | A spreadsheet |
Text | A heading, note or caption | Nothing |
A configuration window opens (Configure metric, Configure chart and so on). Under Data source, press Pick a source and choose the table.
Set what to show:
Metric: the value and its aggregate (Sum, Average, Min, Max, Unique count and others). Optional Trend over (optional) adds a sparkline and a change figure. Display as can switch to Gauge (half arc) with Zones.
Chart: Chart type, Category (X axis), Value, and optionally Break down by (series, optional) and Limit (top N, optional). For dates, Group dates by a day, week, month, quarter or year.
Pivot: Rows, Columns, Values, Row subtotals, Grand total row and Grand total column.
Table: choose a table, press Apply, then set columns, sort and filters in the table's own toolbar.
Any panel: Filters limit the rows it reads. Number format sets decimals, prefix and suffix. Panel colors set a background and text colour.
Press Apply. The panel appears. Drag it by its handle to move it, or drag an edge to resize.
Press Done when finished. Changes save by themselves a moment after each edit. There is no separate save button.
Each panel has a menu with Configure, Duplicate and Delete. After a delete a short message offers Undo.
Calculated values
In a chart or pivot, Add calculation builds a ratio of two values (Numerator, Denominator, optionally ×100 (%)). It divides the totals, never averages the ratios. In a metric, Headline is a ratio of two values does the same.
Slicers
A slicer is a filter strip across the top that viewers can click. In edit mode press Slicer, pick a Source and a Column. Date columns offer Dates, Year, Quarter, Month and Range via Periods offered. Each slicer filters every panel whose table has that column. In a panel's configuration, Dashboard slicers lets you map a different column, or choose Don't filter this panel.
A viewer's slicer choices are not saved. They never change the dashboard for others.
Keeping it current
Panels read live data. If a source table changes while you look, the page shows Source data changed and highlights Refresh. It checks about every 30 seconds.
Share it
A dashboard has three audiences, and each needs its own step. In all three, the people who see the dashboard are not given the tables themselves.
To your team
Team access follows the document's rights, as for any item. Nothing special.
To portal customers
Open the dashboard's External users access… menu entry. Turn on Publish in the external portal and add a group.
Open the Data sources tab. It lists every table the panels read, with Rows each viewer sees: Their company / profile, Rows they submitted, All rows, or Use the table’s own setting.
Fix every source marked Not configured. Until you choose, panels over that table show Not available.
Careful: All rows shows every portal viewer totals over the whole table, including other customers' rows. The screen warns you. Use it only for reference data.
For the portal in general, see .
To anyone with the link
Publishing a dashboard exposes no source table by itself. The dialog says: Publishing this dashboard does not expose the tables underneath it. Each source needs its own decision below. A panel whose source has no decision shows Not available.
Open the dashboard's menu and choose Publish.
Read the list Data these panels read. Each source is marked No public access, Table published or Totals only.
Allow totals only: this dashboard may total the table up for anonymous visitors. No row leaves the server and the table stays out of the public navigation. This is right for Metric, Chart and Pivot panels.
Publish the table: makes every row of the table anonymously readable and lists it publicly. It is needed only for Table panels, because they show rows. The dialog shows the row count first.
Press Publish.
You need Edit on the source table to grant either option. Without it the dialog says You do not have edit rights on this table, so you cannot expose it. Revoke removes a totals-only grant.
Careful: a Table panel can only be filled by publishing its table, and a panel's filter is cosmetic. Publishing the table exposes every row, including rows the panel hides. Prefer Allow totals only wherever you can.
On both the portal and the public page, panels that read a spreadsheet are Not available, and so is the Spreadsheet panel type. They have no per-viewer row filtering. Build the figures you want to share from data tables.
How to check it worked
Team: the panels fill with numbers, and Refresh gives the same values.
Portal: sign in as a test portal user (a private window) and open the dashboard. Look for Not available panels.
Public: open Open published version in a private window, not signed in. The yellow rows in Data these panels read should be gone, and the line Every source is readable on the public dashboard. appears.
Undo / what can go wrong
Deleted panel: press Undo in the message straight away. After it is gone, the panel can only be rebuilt. Use Duplicate before big changes.
Two people editing at once: if the dashboard changed since you opened it, your page reloads the newer version and your unsaved edit is replaced.
A panel says Not available: the audience has no decision for the source (see above), or the panel reads a spreadsheet on the portal or public page.
A panel says Configure this panel to pick a source.: it has no source yet. Open Configure.
Unpublish: the dashboard goes offline. A totals-only grant is a separate setting on each source; use Revoke to remove it.
Exposed rows cannot be un-seen. Treat any published table as read by someone.