Administration Guide

Understanding Dashboard Components

Dashboards consist of layouts and widgets. Widgets are informative panels that present data in various specific ways and provide a way for users to interact with that data. There are many widget types for different purposes: Chart, Table, Links, etc. Most widgets are highly customizable and allow you to fine tune their look-and-feel, as well as narrow down the scope of displayed information. All widgets are reusable, which enables you to have the same widget in multiple dashboards. When you modify a widget, it changes simultaneously in all dashboards where it is being used.

Layouts are like wire frames for dashboards—they only specify the arrangement of widgets as a collection of rows and columns. Each dashboard has its own layout, which you can customize at any time. You can also create supplementary layouts, reusable and shared for all dashboards. These layouts can be applied to any dashboard, which makes the process of creating or modifying dashboards quick and easy. Another advantage of reusable layouts is that they can be applied to dashboards not only by the administrator, but also by technicians working in the Desktop App.

Once you have created widgets, you begin creating dashboards. When creating a dashboard, you specify a set of default widgets, which will be displayed within the dashboard by default, and a wider set of widgets potentially available in the dashboard. Technicians working in the Desktop App will be able to replace default widgets with any other available widgets, as well as customize their position within the dashboard.

NOTE: Currently, dashboard customization is not available in the Web App.

Here are the basic steps of setting up dashboards:

  1. Create and configure dashboard widgets. For details, see Creating and Modifying Dashboard Widgets.
  2. Optionally, create and configure dashboard layouts. For details, see Creating and Modifying Dashboard Layouts.
  3. Create dashboards using widgets and layouts created earlier. For details, see Creating and Modifying Dashboards .