Manage and share dashboards

A dashboard is a managed collection of GraphJSON visualizations. Use one when several metrics belong to the same decision, audience, or operating review.

This guide covers the dashboard lifecycle after the first tile is saved: adding charts, arranging the layout, presenting it, sharing it, and retiring it safely.

Before you build#

Give each dashboard one audience and one job. A product review, support queue, executive summary, and customer-facing report usually need different metrics and levels of detail.

A useful dashboard brief fits in four lines:

Name: Weekly product health
Audience: Product and engineering
Decision: Where should we investigate or invest next?
Owner: Product analytics

Prefer a small number of well-labeled tiles over every metric the team can calculate. Put supporting detail in a second dashboard or saved SQL query.

Add a chart#

Dashboards are assembled from existing visualizations:

1. Open a collection and build the chart in Visualize.
2. Confirm the time range, time zone, aggregation, filters, and title.
3. Select Export → To Dashboard.
4. Choose an existing dashboard or create one.
5. Open Dashboards to review the result in context.

Saved SQL visualizations can use the same export workflow. See Work with saved SQL queries.

The dashboard stores each tile as a GraphJSON visualization URL. Editing the dashboard layout does not alter the underlying event data.

Arrange the layout#

Open the dashboard and select Edit. While editing, you can:

• drag a tile to a new position
• resize a tile
• remove a tile from this dashboard
• review how related charts read together

Select Save to persist the current tile list and layout.

Design for the narrowest screen used in the recurring review. A dense wallboard may work on a conference-room display and fail on a laptop. Put the primary health metrics first, keep related measures adjacent, and avoid layouts that require people to remember which time range belongs to which tile.

Recommended order#

For an operating dashboard, a reliable sequence is:

1. Outcome: the number the team ultimately wants to improve
2. Volume: how much activity entered the system
3. Conversion or success rate: how efficiently activity reached the outcome
4. Quality guardrails: errors, latency, refunds, or other failure signals
5. Breakdowns: plan, account segment, channel, or feature

Every tile should state what it measures. Prefer “Weekly accounts completing onboarding” over “Activation.”

Present in full screen#

Select Full Screen for a wallboard or presentation view. In full-screen mode, dashboard iframes refresh every 60 seconds.

That refresh interval reloads the tiles; it does not override caching inside an embedded visualization. Embedded graphs use their normal cache policy, so a reload is not a promise that every tile contains data from the preceding minute.

Exit full screen before editing the layout.

Create a shareable dashboard link#

Select Share, decide whether to require a password, and choose Generate Share URL.

A shared dashboard link is separate from workspace membership:

• viewers do not need access to the GraphJSON dashboard
• the link exposes the charts currently attached to that dashboard
• a password adds a prompt before the shared view loads
• the link should be treated as access to the represented data

Do not use a public dashboard link for customer-specific analytics unless every attached tile is already scoped to data that the intended viewer may see. For per-customer dashboards, generate tenant-filtered embeds on your server using Production embedded analytics.

Choose the right sharing model#

Shared-link safety checklist#

Before sending a link:

• open it in a private browser window
• inspect every tile and tooltip
• verify the displayed time zone and date range
• confirm no tile exposes personal or secret values
• confirm the dashboard is appropriate for everyone who may receive the link
• send the password through a different channel when practical

A password does not replace tenant filtering or data minimization. Anyone who receives the link and password can view the dashboard.

GraphJSON does not currently provide a dashboard-link management screen for revoking one generated URL while retaining the dashboard. If a shared URL must stop working immediately, delete the dashboard and recreate the intended dashboard before sharing a new link. Plan this limitation before using shared links for sensitive or long-lived reporting.

Change or remove a tile#

To change the question represented by a tile, return to the source visualization or saved SQL query, make the change, and export the corrected visualization.

When replacing a tile:

1. export the corrected chart to the dashboard
2. compare old and new results over the same period
3. enter dashboard edit mode
4. remove the obsolete tile
5. save the layout

This sequence keeps the previous result visible until the replacement is verified.

Removing a tile from a dashboard does not delete its collection or saved query. Deleting a collection can break every dashboard, alert, query, or embed that depends on it.

Rename and document dashboards#

Choose a name that identifies the audience or decision:

Executive weekly health
Checkout reliability
Customer success risk
Acme usage overview

Use the description to record:

• owner
• review cadence
• reporting time zone
• important exclusions
• source-of-truth caveats
• escalation path when a guardrail fails

If a metric definition changes, update the description and follow the process in Govern metric definitions.

Retire a dashboard#

Dashboard deletion is permanent. Before selecting Edit → Delete:

1. identify the owner and usual audience
2. confirm the dashboard is not used in a recurring review
3. inventory shared links and screenshots in other systems
4. preserve any metric definitions that still matter
5. decide whether the underlying collections, queries, and embeds remain useful

Deleting a dashboard removes the dashboard resource, not the event data or saved queries behind its tiles.

Troubleshooting#

A tile is empty#

Open the source visualization and check:

• collection
• time range
• event and property names
• filters
• time zone
• whether the source collection was deleted or retention removed the period

Use Troubleshoot missing data when the underlying event is absent.

A tile is stale#

Reload the dashboard, then open the source visualization. Distinguish:

• an event that was never accepted
• an accepted event that has not appeared yet
• an embed still within its cache window
• a fixed time range that no longer includes current events

See Service behavior and operational expectations.

The layout changed unexpectedly#

Enter edit mode, restore the positions and sizes, and select Save. Avoid having multiple people edit the same dashboard simultaneously; the last saved layout wins.

A shared viewer sees too much data#

Stop distributing the link and treat it as a data-access incident. Restrict or delete the dashboard if necessary, review every tile, and follow the response checklist in Data lifecycle and privacy.