Skip to main content

Create Canvas Dashboard

info
  • Holistics recommends using Canvas Dashboards.
  • Holistics Dashboard 3.0 are now called Quick dashboard. See this guide on how to convert quick dashboards into Canvas Dashboards.

Introduction

Canvas Dashboard helps you create versatile and interactive data presentations. You can combine and customize visualizations, interactive control, and text elements to for various purposes, including executive dashboards, narrative reports, and operational monitoring. Here are the key features of Holistics Canvas Dashboard:

  • Canvas Layout: Build dashboards that match your narrative with visualizations, filters, and texts as your building blocks. Add, remove, and rearrange blocks on a blank canvas with pixel-perfect precision.

  • Definition As Code: Define your dashboard as code in AMQL for version control with Git integration, reusable components, and bulk editing at scale.

  • Dedicated Development Space: Build dashboards in the Development workspace and deploy your dashboards to production, while preventing in-progress changes disrupt the end-user's experience.

Canvas Dashboard

How-to create

When building the Canvas Dashboard, Holistics helps generate the code under the hood. This provides a structured approach to developing and managing dashboards. For the standard practice, refer to Development Workflow.

In Holistics, users can create a Canvas Dashboard from:

  • Development workspace: Provides both a Code editor and a Visual editor, but only Admins and Analysts can have access. See Developing in Development.
  • Reporting workspace: Provides only a Visual editor for anyone if granted. This workspace would be suitable for consuming, exploring data, and making small changes only. See Developing in Reporting.

Work with Analytics Blocks

What are Analytics Blocks?

Analytics blocks are components that make up the dashboard, including:

  • Text Blocks: Markdown-supported blocks where you can create headings, buttons, and embedding images, videos, or diagrams. See Text Block.
  • Visualization Blocks: Add basic visualization from the Holistics library or customize your charts. See Visualizations.
  • Interactive Controls: Includes Filter, Period Comparison, and Date Drill to explore data from multiple angles and uncover deeper insights.

To add Analytics Blocks, you can access the toolbar to drag and drop blocks into the dashboard.

View Block Code Definition

To view the code definition of a block, simply click on a block’s context menu > More > Show in Code editor. The code editor automatically expands with the block’s code highlighted for convenient reference.

Customize Blocks Display Preferences

To customize the title, description, and display of a block, click on More > Block Preferences. You have the options to:

  • Hide title and description
  • Hide block’s action menu: This hides subsequent features of the block in View Mode, including Explore data, Data Alerts, Expand block, and more.
block-preferences

Configure Dashboard

Dashboard Customization

The Canvas Dashboard provides a wide range of customization capabilities, allowing you to create a professional and user-friendly experience for end-users.

  • Tabs: Organize your dashboard into multiple pages.
  • Theme: Customize the dashboard styling to align with your branding. See Themes
  • Mobile responsive: Adjust the dashboard layouts to different screen sizes across desktop and mobile. See Mobile Responsive.
  • Actions: Perform specific actions, such as opening external links, sending email, or navigating inside the dashboard. See Actions.

Dashboard Metadata

You can find useful information about your dashboard by clicking on More Info, which includes:

canvas-dashboard-metadata
  • Created time & person
  • Last edited time & person
  • Frequent viewers - Top 5 users who view the dashboard most frequently in the last 30 days (excluding public users)
  • Favorites - The number of stars
  • Views - The number of dashboard views in the last 30 days
  • Dashboard description

For security reasons, dashboard metadata is hidden by default. Only the admin can enable the option in General Settings > Organization General Settings > Enable Dashboard Metadata.

Dashboard Settings

canvas-dashboard-settings
  • General: Define the dashboard’s title and description.
  • Cache Settings: Setup cache duration, only configurable in Development. See Caching Mechanism (Cache).
  • Time zone Settings: Allow changing timezone by dashboard. See Timezone Settings.
  • User Access: Manage read/write permission to specific users.
  • Shareable Links: Manage link permissions to share with external users. See Shareable Links.
  • Embedded Analytics: Manage integration between Holistics and your application. See Embedded Analytics.
  • Data Schedules: Manage the schedule to deliver dashboards automatically to others.

Dashboard Options

  • Embedded Analytics: Embed the Holistics dashboard in your application and make it available to your customers. For more information, please refer to the Embedded Analytics documentation page.
  • Pin to Org Homepage: If you are the admin, you can pin any dashboard for viewers to easily discover the essential dashboard in their organization.
  • Move to: Move your dashboard to another folder. Note that:
    • If the dashboard is in the public workspace, it can only be moved within the public workspace.
    • If the dashboard is in your private workspace, it can be moved out to the public workspace.
  • Delete: Permanently remove your dashboard from the workspace. This action is irreversible.

Let us know what you think about this document :)