Custom Dashboards allow you to tailor your Visual Reporting to suit your audience, highlight what matters most, and present data in an aesthetically pleasing format. In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about creating and customising Custom Dashboards in Castaway:
Create a new Custom Dashboard
Starting from an existing or prebuilt Dashboard
Editing an existing Custom Dashboard
Dashboard Widgets
The Timeline Slider
Adding, Editing, Resizing, Ordering, Removing and Clearing Widgets
Widget Builder Options
Creating a new Custom Dashboard
To create a Custom Dashboard go to Analysis > Boards
- Click Custom Dashboard
- Name your Dashboard (You cannot create a Dashboard without a name)
- Decide if you want to start from a prebuilt or build your own
- Choose a template from the options provided or start from a blank canvas
- Click Start Building
Starting from a Prebuilt is a great option for if one of Castaway's Inbuilt Dashboards covers most of your Data Visualisation needs, allowing you to quickly pull together a Dashboard and remove or add additional data.
Starting from an existing Dashboard
If you already have a Custom Dashboard that you wish to use as the basis for a new one, follow these steps:
- Go into your Custom Dashboard and click on the ellipsis in the top right corner
- Select Create new Board from
- Name the new Board
Editing an existing Custom Dashboard
- Go into your Custom Dashboard and click on the ellipsis in the top right corner
- Select Edit Board to get into edit mode, you should see the grid pattern of the canvas
Dashboard Widgets
Widgets are the building blocks of Dashboards that you place on your canvas to bring in your financial and non-financial data to present and customise your reports. Castaway offers three types of widgets:
- Graph: Display financial data as charts or graphs using built-in options or create your own. Available styles include column, bar, stacked spline, and pie charts.
- Text: Include commentary, disclaimers, analysis, insights, highlights, or assumptions to provide context and explain trends in your data.
- Image: Add any image to your dashboard. (Supported formats are .JPEG, .PNG, .GIF, .BMP, and .SVG)
- Logo: Allows you to display your organisation’s or client’s logo on the Dashboard or Storyboard, to reinforce branding and create a more professional, customised presentation. These will draw from your Saved Logos.
- KPI: Displays key performance indicators in a clear, easy-to-read format, allowing you to highlight important metrics, track performance against targets, and quickly draw attention to areas performing well or requiring review.
You MUST save the changes to your Dashboard to lock in any changes made on the canvas
The Timeline Slider
Widgets in your Dashboard will refer to the timeline slider above the canvas, determining the period in question, when presenting your data in KPI and graph widgets. KPI widget will default to the end month. You can elect to override the slider to display a chosen month, for graph and KPI widget types, by clicking on the widget and changing the Date Range or Period in the settings, respectively.
Adding a Widget
-
Go into your Custom Dashboard
- Click and drag a Board in from the Board Builder on the right hand side
- Drop it into your Dashboard canvas
- Choose the widget type you need (graph, text, image, logo, KPI)
Editing Widgets
- Clicking on a widget will bring up the editor relevant to the type (graph, text, image, logo, KPI)
- Make your changes in the widget builder
- Click the X in the corner of the builder
- Resize the widget by dragging the corners
- Move the widget by dragging it around the canvas
You MUST save the changes to your Dashboard to lock in any changes made on the canvas
Ordering, Removing and Clearing Widgets
To bring up any of these options, click the ellipsis in the top right hand corner of the widget
- Send to Back / Front to change the ordering of you widgets
- Clear Widget will revert it to the widget type selection
- Remove will delete it from the Dashboard canvas
Widget Builder Options
There are numerous different options to choose from in the widget builder, and vary greatly from type-to-type. A brief summary of the options available are summarised below:
Show Title - Toggle on / off - To edit the title, double click on the widget title
Add text - To write in a text widget, double click anywhere on the widget
Data Tab
Display as - Choose between Months, Quarter, Years options
KPI Category Table - Choose KPIs to include in your widget
Period (KPIs) - Choose to show a specific month or refer to the Timeline Slider at the top of the report
Add Data (graphs) - Choose what to display from your data set
Edit your graph data settings by clicking on the data line itself:
Display Tab
Show legend (graphs) - Toggle on / off
Date Range (graphs) - Elect to use the slider, fixed dates, relative dates
Axis (graphs) - Choose how your axis naming appears
Style Tab
Border - Toggle on / off, choose from your Brand Colours, weight, corner radius and opacity
Background & Opacity - Choose from your Brand Colours
Lock editing in Storyboards - Prevent editing when Publishing your Storyboards
Library Tab
Upload an Image - Supported formats are .JPEG, .PNG, .GIF, .BMP, and .SVG
Logo Tab
Logos - Choose from your saved Logos