What is a Dashboard?
A dashboard is a visual display of key metrics and trends for records in your firm. The association between a dashboard component and a report is 1:1; for each dashboard component, there is a single source report. However, you can use the same report in multiple dashboard components on a single dashboard (for example, use the same report in both a bar chart and pie chart). You can display multiple dashboard components on a single dashboard page, creating a powerful visual display and a way to consume multiple reports that often have a common theme, like sales performance or customer support.
Dashboards and Data Access
Each dashboard has a running user, whose security settings determine which data to display in a dashboard. If the running user is a specific user, all dashboard viewers see data based on the security settings of that user—regardless of their own personal security settings. For this reason, you’ll want to choose the running user wisely, so as not to open up too much visibility. For example, set the advisor as the running user for an activity board for her team. This allows her team members to view the activity board for their individual team, but not other teams.
Dynamic dashboards are dashboards for which the running user is always the logged-in user. This way, each user sees the dashboard according to his or her own access level. If you’re concerned about too much access, dynamic dashboards might be the way to go.
Why use Dashboards?
Dashboards help you visually understand changing business conditions so you can make decisions based on the real-time data you have gathered with reports. Use dashboards to help users identify trends, sort out quantities, and measure the impact of their activities. Before building, reading, and sharing dashboards, review these dashboard basics.
As you prepare to view your Elements data with dashboards, keep these tips in mind:
- Reports provide all the data shown in a dashboard. Dashboards can show data from more than one report.
- When refreshing a dashboard, all the data-providing reports must run. If the reports take a long time to run, then the dashboard does too.
- Dashboards are shared via folders. Whomever has permission to the folder your dashboard is saved in also has access to your dashboard. Ensure that you save your dashboard in an appropriate folder.
Before creating or reading a dashboard, familiarize yourself with these features and concepts.
Dashboard Editor
The Dashboard Editor is a visual, drag-and-drop tool which you use to create dashboards and edit existing ones. The Dashboard Editor is where you add, edit, and arrange dashboard components. To launch the Dashboard Editor, click New Dashboard.
Components
Dashboards are made up of components. Each component contains a chart or metric which shows data from one report. Different components can show data from different reports.
Running User (Who sees what?)
In Elements, different users have different permissions to access data. A dashboard only displays data that the person running the dashboard can access. For example, say you’re viewing a dashboard describing Portfolios. Emily is an operations manager who sees all Portfolios, and Marcus is a direct sales specialist who sees only the Portfolios he owns. If Emily is the dashboard’s running user, then the dashboard shows data about all the Portfolios in Elements. If Marcus is the running user, then the dashboard only shows data about Portfolios that Marcus owns.
What is a Dashboard Folder?
Like reports, dashboards are stored in folders, which control who has access. If you have access to a folder, you can view its dashboards. However, to view the dashboard components, you need access to the underlying reports as well.
Learn more about Reports and Dashboards here.
