Create a dashboard
When you need to view data reports for multiple metrics on one page under a single analysis topic, you can create a dashboard. Analysis models such as event, retention, funnel, distribution, interval, path, composition, and SQL, as well as user tags, can all be saved as reports and placed on a dashboard.
After you add the reports you need to a dashboard, you can add note components to explain the reports on it. You can also add page filters so that dashboard viewers can drill down into the data easily.
Create a dashboard
Create a dashboard directly
Click the + button to the right of the dashboard list, select New Dashboard, and choose whether to place the new dashboard in My Space or Team Space. The dashboard is then created.
Dashboards in My Space are usually for personal data viewing. When you want your team to view dashboards on certain topics in a unified, structured way, placing them in Team Space is a better choice.
After you create a dashboard, you can rename, copy, move, or delete it.
Other ways to create a dashboard
Copy a dashboard
When you want to build a dashboard on a topic similar to an existing one, you can use the dashboard Copy feature.
In the dashboard list, click … to the right of the dashboard name and select Copy to make a copy of the dashboard and specify a new location for the copy.
When copying, you can choose to reference the reports of this dashboard in the copy, or to copy the reports. AE supports using the same report on multiple dashboards, which is what referencing reports does; copying reports creates a set of identical new reports in the dashboard copy. Only the dashboard's creator and editors can select Use Existing Reports.
Import a dashboard
You can use the dashboard Import/Export feature to copy dashboards from one project to another. Note that the event and property definitions of the exporting project and the importing project must match, meaning both projects must have the same tracking structure, for the imported dashboards to work properly.
Click + in the upper-right corner of the dashboard list and click Export dashboards to open this feature. You can export any team spaces, folders, and the dashboards in them, and generate and download a dashboard configuration file.
In the project you want to import dashboards into, click + in the upper-right corner of the dashboard list and select Import dashboards to upload the dashboard configuration file.
You can choose either My Space or Team Space as the import location. However, if you don't have permission to create team spaces, AE creates a folder named Space - original space name under My Space and imports the original dashboards into it.
After the upload finishes and the import succeeds, you can view the dashboards in the new project.
Create a dashboard from a template
With dashboard templates, you can quickly create a dashboard by specifying only the data mapping it needs. In the Template Gallery, you can view the dashboard templates preset by AE and the custom dashboard templates of your organization. To open the Template Gallery, click Use Templates when creating a dashboard, or go there directly from the Tool drop-down menu in the top bar.
Add components to a dashboard
After you create a dashboard, you can add the following components to it.
Add reports
In AE, reports are tools for conveniently and interactively viewing various types of data metrics and user tags.
Click + in the upper-right corner of the dashboard to add reports to it through New Report or Existing Reports.
- In New Report, you can create a report based on any model in the AE Analytics module and quickly save it to this dashboard.
- In Existing Reports, you can save previously saved reports to this dashboard. In particular, in the Users module, you can save any tag in the current project as a report and place it on this dashboard.
Add page filters
In AE, if you are the creator or an editor of a dashboard and want to give dashboard viewers an easy way to drill down across multiple dimensions, you can add page filters to the dashboard. For example, after you select dimensions such as "Country" and "Server ID" and add them to the page filter, dashboard viewers can easily view the data for the "Test Server" in "Singapore" or the "Official Server" in "Japan".
The creator and editors of a dashboard can select Page filter from + in the upper-right corner of the dashboard, edit the filter conditions, and then add the page filter to the dashboard.
In a page filter, the available filter fields include all user properties, cohorts, and user tags, as well as the event properties shared by all events used in the reports on the current dashboard. Multiple filter fields are combined with AND logic. Filter fields from different sources apply to reports in different scopes, as shown below:
| Filter field source | Scope |
|---|---|
| Event properties, or cohorts and tags based on them | Event, retention, funnel, distribution, and interval analysis reports, and this project's Event table in SQL queries. |
User properties, or cohorts and tags based on them | Event, retention, funnel, distribution, interval, path, and composition analysis reports, and this project's User and Event tables in SQL queries. |
Currently, only string, number, time, and Boolean fields can be used as filter fields. When there are multiple filter fields combined with AND logic, each filter field applies to reports according to the scope of its source, as described above.
User tag tables, and SQL reports that use only the tag cohort table, history tag table, dimension table, or user daily snapshot table, are not affected by the filter fields in page filters.
If dashboard viewers need custom filter conditions to filter data, or need complex conditional filtering, see Global filter.
You can also set page filters for a team space; the filter conditions apply to all dashboards in that space.
Add notes
When you need to explain certain business information on a dashboard, or explain the metrics used in certain reports, you can add a Note to help dashboard viewers understand the dashboard content.
Click + in the upper-right corner of the dashboard and select Note.
You can use different font sizes to highlight key points, change the font color and background color, and insert links to better explain the data results shown.
Configure the dashboard
Dashboard settings
Approximate calculation
By default, dashboards use exact calculation, meaning every calculation produces an accurate result based on the conditions.
To improve query efficiency, you can turn on the Approx. Calculation option. This greatly reduces performance overhead and calculation time, and the error between approximate and exact results can be kept within 0.4%.
Approximate calculation uses the Hyperloglog algorithm.
Fixed time range
If you want all reports on a dashboard to share the same start and end time, for example when you view the overall data of a recurring campaign and all reports on the dashboard need the same time range, you can turn on Fixed Time Range.
Fixed timezone
If you want project members to view a dashboard's data from the same time zone, you can turn on Fixed Timezone. When this switch is off, each project member views the dashboard in their personal default time zone.
This setting is available only after Time Zone Converter is turned on for the project.
Pre-computation settings
For dashboards that involve heavy computation but don't require real-time data, you can turn on Scheduled Updates to improve display efficiency. AE computes the dashboard with its default conditions and caches the results, which are then shown when the dashboard is viewed.
The default conditions for dashboard pre-computation are a combination of the following: the Data Authority of the current dashboard owner, the dashboard's default global filter, the dashboard's default page filter options, the space's default filter options, the dashboard's fixed timezone (dashboards without a fixed timezone use the default time zone of their project), and the dashboard's fixed time range. If personal preferences exist, including personal default filter conditions and a personal preferred time zone, the pre-computed results cannot be used when viewing.
For pre-computation, you can set the calculation frequency, scheduled time, and start and end dates. By default, the supported calculation frequencies are Daily, Every N days, Weekly, and Monthly. An advanced feature supports Daily, multiple times pre-computation; to try it, contact your customer success manager to enable it. If start and end dates are set, the dashboard is computed only within that period; when you view the dashboard after the end date, the cache from the previous pre-computation can be used. If the dashboard has a fixed timezone, the scheduled time and the start and end dates are all in that time zone.
When you view a dashboard, if its conditions match those used in pre-computation, the pre-computed results are used directly; if the conditions have changed, an ad hoc query is triggered.
View pre-computation status
For dashboards that have run pre-computation, you can view the execution status through Pre-computation Task Log under More.
The execution status includes the following information:
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Execution start/end time: the time the pre-computation task was triggered and the time its first execution completed. If any report fails to compute, the system may retry automatically after the end time.
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Calculation status:
- Queuing: the scheduled task time has arrived, but execution hasn't started yet because the common-service queue is congested.
- Waiting: if the Wait for Prerequisite Calculation setting has been turned on and the tags used in the dashboard haven't finished updating for the day, pre-computation starts only after the tag calculation completes.
- Calculating: not all dashboard report calculations have completed.
- Completed: all dashboard report calculations have completed, with no failed reports or reports that need to be retried.
- Exception: some dashboard reports failed to calculate or need to be retried.
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Dashboard report calculation details: view them through Task Details.
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Duration: the time from start to end in common-service, in seconds, including the time spent in the query engine.
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Remarks: the error message after a calculation fails. Common errors are as follows:
- ADMINISTRATIVELY_KILLED: the query was canceled for system reasons
- USER_CANCEL: the query was canceled
- TABLE_NOT_FOUND: a table used in the query does not exist
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Custom cache
By default, dashboard calculation results are cached for 10 minutes. To shorten or extend how long the results are kept, you can set a custom cache as needed.
Pre-computed dashboards support only the system default cache policy, which keeps query results until the next scheduled pre-computation. Therefore, dashboards with pre-computation turned on don't support custom cache settings.
Dashboard filters
Date filter
With Date Filter, you can unify the time range of all reports on a dashboard except user tag tables and SQL reports.
Global filter
When you want to filter data or apply complex multi-condition filters, you can use Global filter.
The available filter fields for global filters, and how and where they apply to reports, are similar to Page Filter, but multiple filter fields can be combined with either AND or OR logic.
After a filter condition is added through Add to favorite filters, the dashboard's creator or editors can set it as the default global filter so that it applies to all members who can see the dashboard. It can also be set as a personal default filter, which applies only to the person who sets it.
Dashboard content
Adjust layout
When you need to rearrange the components on a dashboard to organize its structure, you can use the Adjust layout feature.
You can find this feature under Existing Reports in the + menu in the upper-right corner of the dashboard.
Dashboard data anomaly alerts
When data assets that a dashboard depends on (such as metadata, reports, cohorts, and tags) fail, the dashboard's calculation and display may be affected, and the system shows an alert at the top of the page.
If a failure is detected, the root cause and affected locations are provided to help you troubleshoot quickly. For further troubleshooting, you can also go to the corresponding reports to see how each report is affected.
Note that the failure status is real-time, but the root cause and affected locations may be delayed by up to 1 hour. If the related failure has already been fixed, you can ignore this alert.