Using Dashboards

Overview

Dashboards let you build interactive views over data from any project or workspace you have access to. A single dashboard can combine tables from multiple projects, mix visualizations with raw exploration, and serve both standing reports and ad-hoc analysis. Dashboards scale from small reference tables to billion-row datasets without configuration changes.

Dashboard Accounts

Your dashboard account is set up for you the first time you open a dashboard from PlaidCloud, so there is nothing to create by hand. What you can see follows from your PlaidCloud workspace membership and security groups.

Note

Add, change, and remove people in PlaidCloud rather than inside the dashboard service — see Managing Workspace Members. Creating a user account directly in the dashboard service is an administrator-only action, and an account made that way is not connected to your workspace membership.

Which Dashboards You See

The dashboard list in PlaidCloud shows the published dashboards belonging to the projects you can access. That is the usual case and covers nearly every dashboard.

A dashboard can also be restricted to particular roles inside the dashboard service. Where one has been, it is listed only for people holding one of those roles — along with anyone named as its owner, and dashboard-service administrators, who see every dashboard. A dashboard with no such restriction is listed exactly as before, to exactly the same people, so restricting one dashboard never changes who sees the others.

Two things are worth knowing if a dashboard is missing from your list:

• Restricting a dashboard hides it from the list, not just from opening it. Someone without a matching role sees no trace of it, so ask its owner rather than assuming it was deleted.
• Your dashboard account has to exist for a restricted dashboard to reach you. It is created for you the first time you open a dashboard from PlaidCloud. Until then there is nothing for a role to match against, so restricted dashboards stay hidden from you while unrestricted ones are listed as normal — open any dashboard once and the restricted ones you hold a role for appear.

Note

Set these restrictions in the dashboard service, on the dashboard’s own properties. Project access in PlaidCloud still applies on top: a role grant inside the dashboard service does not give you a dashboard belonging to a project you cannot reach.

Editing a Table

The message you receive after creating a new table also directs you to edit the table configuration. While there are more advanced features to edit the configuration, we will start with a limited and more simple portion. To edit table configuration:

1. Click on the edit icon of the desired table
2. Click the “List Columns” tab
3. Arrange the columns as desired
4. Click “Save”

This allows you to define the way you want to use specific columns of your table when exploring your data.

• Groupable: If you want users to group metrics by a specific field
• Filterable: If you need to filter on a specific field
• Count Distinct: If you want to get the distinct count of this field
• Sum: If this is a metric you want to sum
• Min: If this is a metric you want to gather basic summary statistics for
• Max: If this is a metric you want to gather basic summary statistics for
• Is temporal: This should be checked for any date or time fields

Exploring Your Data

To start exploring your data, simply click on the desired table. By default, you’ll be presented with a Table View.

Getting a Data Count

To get a the count of all your records in the table:

1. Change the filter to “Since”

2. Enter the desired since filter

   • You can use simple phrases such as “3 years ago”

3. Enter the desired until filter

   • The upper limit for time defaults is “now”

4. Select the “Group By” header

5. Type “Count” into the metrics section

6. Select “COUNT(*)”

7. Click the “Query” button

You should then see your results in the table.

If you want to find the count of a specific field or restriction:

1. Type in the desired restriction(s) in the “Group By” field
2. Run the query

Note

When using “measurement” in a restriction it will refer to the value of the measurement taken which depends on the type of measurement. Therefore you should ensure the measurement types are the same under the “filter section (e.g. weather_description and Maximum temperature.)”

Restricting Result Number

If you only need a certain number of results, such as the top 10:

1. Select “Options”
2. Type in the desired max result count in the “Row Limit” section
3. Click “Query”

Additional Visualization Tools

To expand abbreviated values to their full length:

1. Select “Edit Table Config”
2. Click “List Sql Metric”
3. Click “Edit Metric”
4. Click “D3Format”

To edit the unit of measurement:

1. Select “Edit Table Config”
2. Click “List Sql Metric”
3. Click “Edit Metric”
4. Click “SQL Expression”

To change the chart type:

1. Scroll to “Chart Options”
2. Fill in the required fields
3. Click “Query”

From here you are able to set axis labels, margins, ticks, etc.