Managing Dashboards

Our Advanced Reports extension allows you to have more than one Dashboard, suited for different purposes. They all are located at Dashboard -> Advanced Dashboard section as a part of the menu:

It is divided into three sections:

• Top section allows you quick access to dashboards, that you had created.
• Middle section provides you with basic actions, that can be done on currently opened Dashboard: Edit and Delete.
• Bottom section contains a single action, which allows you to create new Dashboard

Creating New Dashboard

Visit Dashboard -> Advanced Dashboard, open menu and press Add New Board action. You will be brought to the dashboard creation page, which contains the following fields:

• Title - a sensical name of your Dashboard.
• Type - type of your new Dashboard. There are two different types:
  • Private Board will be available only for current user.
  • Shared Board will be available for all backend users, defined in System -> Permissions -> All Users.
• Is Default - whether newly-created Dashboard will be shown immediately after log-in.

• Enable Mobile Access - whether newly-created Dashboard will be accessible in Mobile mode.

  Note

  This mode is very convenient for accessing dashboard data, but has some warranties:
  

  • Dashboard widgets editing mode is disabled.
  • Access to the mobile dashboard is granted according to the URL specified on the page and encrypted in the QR code. We recommend that you use any QR-reader on your mobile device to read such an URL.
  • Dashboard URL itself is highly encoded to limit the ability to remember/copy URLs by an unauthorized person.

  
  Please note that there is no other suitable protection for the mobile dashboard. If you are not sure, do not enable this option.

Press Save to create your new Dashboard.

This will create only a template for a Dashboard. To complete creation, you need to add one or more Blocks to your newly-created Dashboard Panel.

Adding Blocks to Dashboard

After Dashboard is created, you need to add there blocks. Open your newly-created Dashboard, and press View Mode button, which is located in the right end of title ribbon: It will bring you to the Blocks Configuration mode, as shown below:

To add a block, press Add Block button on the title ribbon. It will create an empty block rectangle, as you can see on screenshot above.

This block has four buttons on its bottom pane:

• Move - allows you to move block visually on marked zone. You can also resize block, if you wish - just drag and drop its right-botton corner.
• Settings - allows you to select data, which will be displayed on that block (read more below).
• Refresh - allows you to preview (or refresh) previewed data in Edit Mode.

  Note

  By default, each block is reloaded once a minute to ensure that the dashboard always contains up-to-date data
• Delete - removes block.

You can add to the block either statistical data, or tables. Press Settings button (second on the block button pane), and you will see Metrics Edit Panel:

As you see above, it contains of the following fields:

• General Settings

  • Title - a sensical title for a metric. It will be displayed as title of your block.
  • Description - short description of your block.
  • Block Types - defines view, in which data will be presented. There are three possible values:
    • Single Value - in this mode only first selected data field will be displayed.
    • Table - in this mode multiple fields can be displayed.
    • Chart - in this mode a block will be presented as chart
• Time Range
  • Override Dashboard Time - by enabling this option, you can fix your block on specific period. Otherwise, data on your block will be displayed according to date range, selected for current Dashboard.

    Note

    Blocks with overridden time ranges are marked with special icon at upper-right corner.
  • Range - is a hidden field, which appears only when Override Time mode is used. Allows you to pick up a range, for which block should display data.
  • Compare To - is a hidden field, which appears only when Override Time mode is used. Allows you to pick up a range, which shall be used for comparison.
• Filter - allows you to filter raw data, used by this block, with one or more filters. Read more about it below.

Depending on Block Type parameter, you can also set additional visualization options.

If Block Type is Single Value, then you will see next options:

• Metric - select column that should be used for building the block.
• Spark Line - is the curve line chart, which displays dynamic of selected value by dates. If you had selected Compare To option in
• Comparison - Allows you to pick up a range, which shall be used for comparison.

If Block Type is Table, then will available the next options:

• Dimensions - select column that will be used for group the report.
• Columns - allows you to select, which columns should be displayed
• Sorting - choose sort order
• Rows Limit - allows to set limit for rows.

If Block Type is Chart, then will available the next options:

• Dimension - select column that will be used for group the report.
• Columns - allows you to select, which columns should be displayed
• Comparison - Allows you to pick up a range, which shall be used for comparison.

Selecting Metrics Data

Selection of Metrics data is a little tricky. Field Dimensions and Columns in Metrics Edit Pane contains all available fields in selected category. There are the following Categories:

• Orders - allows you to analyze orders.
• Order Items - allows you to analyze products, that was bought by customers.
• Order Payments - completed payments
• Order Transactions - transactions (e. q. all actions, such as invoicing or shipping), which performed on your orders.
• Taxes - extracted taxes for all actually paid orders
• Order Addresses - addresses, that used as billing or shipping in orders.
• Quotes - quotes, created by customers (includes abandoned).
• Quote Items - products, that customer placed to the quote.
• Invoices - invoices, created for your orders.
• Postcodes - postal codes, used in billing and shipping addresses (used, for example, to determine country ship disperse).
• Customers - your customers.
• Customer Addresses - addresses, that customers are using in their accounts.
• Products - your products.
• Categories - categories, where at least one product is assigned.

Each of this category contains a number of fields. There are four types of them:

• Numerical fields - can be used "as is", for example, IDs. There are two additional subtypes of numerical fields:
  • Total [Field] - calculates total value of the entire column.
  • Average [Field] - calculates average value of the entire column.
• Group of [Field] - non-numerical field, that can be used as filter.

Combine them to create a query, and block will display result, with automatic date clip.

Properly configured, our dashboards should look, as in our demo:

Filtering Data

Each block contains a Filter section, available both at creation stage, and on block editing. It is a table, which contains zero or more conditions, applied to general data. selected at Metrics section.

Each condition is represented by row with the following properties:

• Column - a raw data column, which is used for filtering. It can differ depending on Metrics data, but currently offer only numeric and text columns.
• Operator - is the comparison type. There are the following comparison operators available:
  • Equal To and Not Equal To
  • Greater Than and Lesser Than
  • Equals of Greater Than and Equals of Lesser Than
  • Is One Of and Is Not One Of
• Value - is the value, to which eligible raw data should fit. This field is text-based, so if you wish to use Is One of operator, values shall be comma-separated.
• Action - contains a button for removing condition.

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