In this lesson we will cover:
– Creating a Dashboard
– Creating Widgets
– Dashboard Configuration
– Global Settings
– Side Menu Dashboards
– How to Set Dashboard Defaults
Associated Admin Guides:
Associated Guides:
Creating a Dashboard
In this example, we're going to create a Sales dashboard to display our core sales metrics on the home page of HaloPSA and set this as the default home page view for our sales Manager. The first step to creating our dashboard is to create the respective reports to capture our data. You can use our schema to find core ticket-related fields or, if you're looking for something a bit more complex, reach out to your Consultant who will be able to assist in creating these for you.
Note: The SQL for our "Quote Master Report" in contained in a notepad file within the attachments of this guide. Copy and paste this into a SQL query, and then you can clone and filter the report as many times as is needed to cover your sales metrics and create the corresponding charts. We also recommend downloading a trial if your instance does not already contain the pre-built "Sales Dashboard" as this also covers the basis of what you may wish to include.
Once you have the reports that you're looking for, you will want to head to Configuration > Reporting > Dashboards and create a new dashboard. You'll want to ensure that the dashboard type is "In App", as this will make the "Layout" tab available.
Fig 1. New Dashboard details.
Creating Widgets
Next, you want to head to the layout tab and start configuring the widgets that this dashboard will be composed of.
Clicking "Add Widget" in the layout tab for the dashboard.
Fig 2. Adding widgets to your dashboard.
Opens up the new widget screen, where you provide a widget title, specify the report that this widget is referencing and set a widget type.
Fig 3. New widget screen.
Type
There are four different categories of Widget type that we can choose between; Reports, Tickets, Ticket Details, or Custom HTML.
These will each have different sub-fields to populate in order to decide which Data is displayed, and how its displayed.
- Reports: This includes the above types; Data, Chart and Counter.
Report Data will display the raw output of the selected report, i.e. the rows and columns generated by the query. This data, as well as the rest, will be inherited from the time-period the report is set to.
Report Chart will display any configured chart on the selected report. The chart can be customised either on the report itself via the "Chart Setup" tab, or when configuring the widget (the former is most recommended).
Report Counter will display a single number relating to the chosen metric on the selected report. This can be a count of rows, or an average or total of the values in a selected column. The counter can be allocated a "Drill down report override", which will produce a different report's data when the widget is clicked. A colour can also be chosen for the number. - Feature Menu – The options found on the conventional home page:
Fig 4. Feature Menu.
- Tickets: This includes the types; List, Calendar, Kanban, and Gannt.
Widgets of this type will only be visible to Agents, as the other tickets may contain sensitive information that End-Users would otherwise not have access to. The types correspond to the view in which the tickets are presented, and these can all be filtered to Areas, particular Views, and Filter Profiles. They also all have the ability to filter the tickets shown to either that ticket's children, any of its related tickets, or any tickets at all. When using Ticket List, a limit can be placed on how many results show up. - Ticket Details: This includes the types; Ticket progress/history, Attachments, Single field, Group of fields, Workflow progress, SLA information, and Activity Feed.
These types can all be used to display different aspects of the ticket's details. The 'Group of fields' type will require that particular Field Group to be present on the ticket's Type. The rest are relatively self-explanatory, with the distinction between 'Ticket progress/history' and 'Activity Feed' being that the latter appears as a read-only view of the 'All Actions' version of the usual tickets' "Progress" tab, whereas the other's filters can be configured live, akin to the "Progress" tab beforehand. - Custom HTML: This type of widget can contain any HTML that you would like, which can in-turn contain any $ variables you need to use. For example, these can provide Ticket or Agent specific information, formatted however you like (as long as you can write the HTML to do so!).
Appearance
The selection here will determine how the Widget appears in the live Dashboard.
- Default appearance: The content of this Widget will be in the box of your configured size, and permanently bordered with a thin lined, rounded box.
- No border: The content of this Widget will be displayed as above, however there will be no outline at all.
- No border with hover: The content of this Widget will be displayed as above (No border), however an outline will appear once the Widget is hovered with the cursor. This is recommended for cases where one might scroll data, but still desire a borderless look when not doing so.
Charts
When creating a chart for a sales dashboard, you may want to include currency labels for easy identification. This can be configured in the "Chart Setup" tab on the report as of v2.176.1+. Create your chart as normal by selecting the X and Y-axis values. Upon scrolling down a little, an area of checkboxes will show.
Here you can enable "Show data labels" and the "Format data values as currency" checkbox will then show.
Enabling this will then show the "Symbol" box. This will be auto-populated with your default currency, but can be changed as you wish.
Fig 5. Enabling currency labels.
The configuration above will show the chart label like this – this is using the attached "Quote Master Report" on this guide with a multi-series chart with bars.
Fig 6. Multi-series bar chart with currency labels.
Having the symbol box empty will show instead like "1,000.00", or adding a space before the symbol will show like "1,000.00£".
Alternatively, disabling "Format data values as currency" means it will show just as "1000".
If you wanted to quickly see the proportion of profit at a glance, stacking bars is a useful addition. Upon creating a multi-series chart with bar charts, the checkbox option to "Stack Bars" will show.
Fig 7. Stack Bars checkbox on a report chart.
Upon enabling, the multiple bars will show as one on top of each other. When combined with the currency labels, this can be a simple way to show profitability of different projects at a glance. On the X-axis, I have "Ticket ID" from the provided "Quote Master Report". I have then added "Total GP" and "Total Cost" columns as bars on the Y-axis. This allows me to see the proportions easily, as well as the total revenue of the deal by the combined value on the Y-axis.
Fig 8. Stacked bars on a multi-series chart.
Custom CSS
CSS code can be entered here to customise your widgets. This is a universal language, and guides can be found for this on the internet. You can apply CSS to a particular Widget by using the selector "#widget-10 .widget" (for Widget 10). The Widget number can be seen at the bottom left of each Widget when in Edit mode (below highlighted in blue)
Other Widget Configuration
Once saved, these Widgets can then be moved around the Layout pane by dragging them into place. They can be resized by dragging the small corner icon in the bottom right of each Widget.
Should you want to remove a Widget, there will be a small bin/trash can icon on the top right of each Widget which you can use to delete them. It should be noted that content of the widget may obscure this button, however you will still be able to select it through the image, as in edit mode, the widget content is read-only.
Likewise, if you would like to edit an already created Widget, a paper & pencil icon will be alongside the bin/trash can which can be used to re-configure the Widget. Again, this may be obscured in edit mode but it is still functional.
Fig 9. Options on widgets.
Dashboard Configuration
Once you are happy with your Widget configuration, feel free to save the Dashboard, and it will be ready for use!
The other options at the top of the Dashboard configuration screen allow you to Import or Export this Dashboard via a .JSON file. This is useful for sharing Dashboard layouts between other instances, and allows you to play around in a UAT or trial without negative repercussions before exporting it to your production instance to be used once you're happy with it. Should you want to clone a Dashboard, this is also a way to do that (export it then import it back in again).
Fig 10. Top bar of dashboards.
There are also the options for the Layout sizes when you are configuring the Layout. This will determine the size of the menu that this tab will try to fit. Auto is recommended for most, however you may want to consider the smaller sizes should you be using these dashboards on the mobile application.
Fig 11. Layout options.
The Sequence value on the Custom Tab setup will determine the position of this Dashboard tab in lists, with higher values being towards the bottom.
Fig 12. Sequence in list.
Widgets can then be moved around via clicking and dragging, and resized via dragging the bottom right corner.
Once you're happy with your dashboard layout, you can then head to Configuration > Reporting > General to globally set the "Dashboard to show on the home screen" or the "Side menu dashboard".
Fig 13. Global settings for home page dashboard.
Side Menu Dashboards
If there is a side menu dashboard set in Configuration > Reporting > General Settings, there will be a new icon on the top right between the to-do list sidebar and the feed sidebar.
Fig 14. Side menu dashboard.
Checkout this video from Rising Tide consulting on how to show followed tickets on the side menu dashboard.
How to Set Dashboard Defaults
Or you can set the default dashboard on a per Agent basis via heading to Configuration > Teams & Agents > Agents and updating the preferences for individual agents.
Fig 15. Changing the home page dashboard per agent.
Fig 16. Side menu dashboard and chart on Agent Preferences.
Note: If the global/agent preference dashboard is left as the default, there will be an option to show a default chart on the home screen.
Fig 17. Default "Chart to show on home screen" option in Configuration > Reports > General Settings (Dashboard has to be set to "Default").
