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Dashboard overview

Introduction​

Dashboards help you create interactive data presentations that let you tell compelling stories with your data or paint a bigger picture of your organization.

The dashboard is made up of modular units called Building blocks arranged inside the Dashboard editor. Think of them like Lego blocks, and your editor is the base board, with these blocks sitting on top.

canvas-dashboard-thumbnail

Type of Dashboards​

There are two types of dashboards in Holistics:

  • Canvas Dashboard: A flexible canvas that generates code underneath the hood for analysts to easily maintain and scale your dashboard.
  • Quick Dashboard: A simple, built for solo analysis, suitable when you need an ad-hoc report.
Canvas Dashboard (Recommended) Quick Dashboard (Legacy)
PurposeBuild dashboards that scale and apply to teams, organizationsCreate ad hoc data explorations and reports
Layout & CustomizationSupport multiple tabs, pixel-perfect layout, customizable themes, and mobile-friendlySupport single tab, and auto-layout
CollaborationHas dedicated development workflow to ensure changes are reviewedChanges applies automatically
Version controlVersion control with Git integrationNot supported

For detailed comparison, please refer to Compare Canvas Dashboard and Quick Dashboard

Dashboard editor​

Dashboard editor is where you would be editing and viewing your dashboard. Depending on the types of dashboards you are choosing, the editor will be different.

The Canvas Dashboard editor is where you build your dashboards. It offers a seamless transition between a familiar drag-and-drop visual editor and a powerful code editor for programmatic creation.canvas-dashboard-editor
  1. Edit modes toggle: Change to your preferred editor mode, including Code, Dual, or Visual.
  2. Tabs: View and edit different views of your dashboard.
  3. Settings & Customization: View and edit dashboard settings such as Cache, Time zone, Themes, Preview by Device (Laptop/Mobile), and Filter Management.
  4. Code editor: View and edit your dashboard in code. Click Update to view changes in the Visual editor
  5. Visual editor: View and edit your dashboard in a GUI. Changes automatically update the dashboard code
  6. Toolbar: Add analytics blocks to enrich your Canvas Dashboard. You can drag the toolbar around the visual editor
  7. Zoom control: Configure the zoom level.
  8. Block’s context menu: When clicking on a block, a context menu appears on the top left corner of that block. It contains settings and operations relating to the selected block.

Building blocks​

Building blocks are the Legos that sit on top of your workspace. Analytics blocks include: Text, Visualization, and Interactive Controls (such as Filters, Period Comparisons, and Date Drills). Together, these blocks allow you to present, engage with, and enhance the context of your data robustly.

Text Block​

reporting-intro-to-blocks-text-blocks

Text blocks allow you to incorporate context and information into your dashboard. They are Markdown-supported, which should serve your most common formatting requirements. You can use this to add text, images, or embed videos, etc.

For more information, you can refer to Text Block.

Visualization Block​

reporting-intro-to-blocks-viz-blocks

Visualization blocks allow you to add a variety of visualizations, including custom charts. Each block contains a single visualization. A dashboard can have multiple visualization blocks created from different datasets. Since it was backed by datasets, you can also freely explore the data of each block.

For more information, you can refer to Visualizations.

Interactive Control Block​

reporting-intro-to-blocks-ic-blocks

Interactive Control blocks — such as Filters, Period Comparisons, and Date Drills — allow you to manipulate data and add interactivity to your Dashboard.

  • In Canvas Dashboard: You can move this block anywhere within the canvas.
  • In Quick Dashboard: This block is fixed at the header of the dashboard.

For more information, you can refer to Filter, Period Comparison, Date Drill.

Reused blocks​

Reused Blocks let you define a single “main block” and reference it in many dashboards. That way, you can build it once and reuse it multiple times, while having the flexibility to customize where needed.

For more information, you can refer to Reused blocks.

FAQs​

How can we get access to the Canvas Dashboard?​

The canvas dashboard is only available on Version 4.0. To get access to this kind of dashboard, you can migrate to our 4.0 version.

What would happen to my existing dashboards if I migrate from version 3.0 to 4.0 to get Canvas Dashboard?​

There will be no changes. Version 4.0 supports both Canvas Dashboard and Quick Dashboards, so your existing dashboards will continue to work as expected.

However, we strongly recommend that you convert to Canvas Dashboard to unlock all of the as-code editing, greater flexibility, and advanced customization.

When will Quick Dashboard be deprecated, and what happens next?​

While there is currently no finalized plan, we are considering the end of 2025 as the earliest potential timeframe for deprecating Quick Dashboard.

We will provide customers with at least 6 months’ advance notice before any deprecation occurs, once the timeline is confirmed.

Last updated: Jun 2025

How to generate a Canvas Dashboard from a Quick Dashboard?​

Prerequisites
  • Available in Holistics Version 4.0.
  • Requires Admin or Analyst permissions

Follow these steps:

  • Open your existing Quick Dashboard
  • Click Generate Canvas Dashboard
  • Click Generate

A new Canvas Dashboard will be created in Development mode. Your original Quick Dashboard remains unchanged. You'll now have both the original Quick Dashboard and the new Canvas Dashboard as separate entities.

What’s the difference between Canvas Dashboard and Quick Dashboard?​

Canvas DashboardQuick Dashboard
Development
LayoutFreely arrange visualizations, texts, filters, etc. anywhere on CanvasVisualizations, and texts are arranged onto fixed-size grids. Filters and dashboard controls are always on top
As-code definitionDeclarative AML as-code definitionNot supported
ReusabilityInherit AML’s reusabilityNot supported
Version controlVersion control with Git integrationNot supported
Development experienceDevelop dashboard in Modeling layer
Changes are applied after publishing to production		Develop dashboard in Reporting layer
Changes are automatically applied
View & Interaction
Responsiveness & ScalingKeep the dashboard ratio. Allow users to zoom in/out the dashboard to fit their screen.
Control the size of canvas in pixels		Auto-resize the dashboard to fit the users’ screen. Dashboards look differently on different screens
Dashboard controls: Filters, Period Comparison, Date DrillsPlace anywhere within dashboard
Support easy reset to default values		Always stay on top of dashboard
Manually reset to default values
Cross-filteringSupport ability to selectively apply/exclude cross-filtering to a subset of visualizations
Cross-filtering triggers when clicking on Apply controls		When enabled, cross-filtering is applied to the whole dashboard (among visualizations using the same datasets)
Cross-filtering automatically triggers on click
Drill-throughSupport Drill-through between multiple Canvas DashboardsSupport Drill-through between multiple Quick Dashboard
ExportExport dashboard: Support export as PNG/PDF
Export visualizations: Support export as PDF/Excel/csv
Data SchedulesSupport send to Email / Slack / Google Sheets / SFTP
Data AlertsSupport send alerts to Email / Slack / Webhook
Embedded AnalyticsSupport create Embed Link in Dashboard Preferences
Explore data from dashboardsAdmin, Analyst, and Explorer can explore a visualization in a dashboard, but CAN NOT save the exploration resultsAdmin, Analyst, and Explorer can explore a visualization in a dashboard, and save the exploration results to another dashboard
Private dashboardsNot supportedAdmin, Analyst, and Explorer can create new dashboards in private workspace
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