Visually present your Cube data using dashboards to support your planning and analysis needs. Cube admins can create and publish dashboards composed of questions, or various charts and KPIs, and share them with team members. Build dashboards for specific users or a broad audience.
Learn how dashboards work.
1. Create a dashboard
Use the New Dashboard button to create a new dashboard. New dashboards are saved in your drafts until they are deleted or ready for publishing.
To edit a draft or published dashboard, click View or Preview Dashboard and then Manage Dashboard.
2. Add questions
Questions are a single chart or KPI built out of one query of your data, and they fuel your dashboards. All questions you’ve created are stored in a bank for reuse in this dashboard. You can create a new question, add a question from your bank, or edit an existing question.
Create a new question
Open a dashboard by clicking View Dashboard or Preview Dashboard, then Edit Dashboard, and add a new question to your bank of questions by clicking the New Question button.
Questions are made by choosing the Cube data you want to use (by filtering) and how you want it summarized and organized.
Learn more about question components or see a step-by-step guide to creating questions.
Building a standard FP&A dashboard? This article will guide you through creating the questions you might include.
Add a question from your bank
If a similar question already exists in the question bank for this dashboard, you can simply add it to your dashboard and make any necessary changes. Your question bank for each dashboard also includes questions that were deleted from this dashboard so you can quickly re-add them.
Open the dashboard editor by clicking the pencil icon and then use the plus icon to open your question bank. Click the name of the question to insert it into your dashboard.
Edit a question
Make changes to your questions anytime by clicking on the name of your KPI or chart from the Edit Dashboard view to open the editor. Change the visualization type, colors, or the question itself.
Learn more about editing questions.
3. Add dashboard filters
Add filters to this dashboard to enable viewers to break down the visualizations and data. We recommend adding filters for each of the top-level dimensions represented in the data, but additional filters might be useful depending on your audience.
Learn how to add dashboard filters.
4. Format and organize the dashboard
Make changes to the layout and overall appearance of your published or draft dashboard by opening the Manage Dashboard view and clicking the pencil icon.
Click and drag a question to move or resize it.
Add text anywhere in your dashboard.
Hover over a question to open additional visualization options:
- Update the chart type or display
- Change the click behavior, such as whether clicking the visualization allows the user to drill into the data or if it links to a custom destination.
- Delete a question from the dashboard. Deleted questions will still be available to add to this dashboard from your question bank.
5. Publish the dashboard
Prepare and save dashboards as drafts and publish them when you’re ready for your colleagues to view them. Drafts and published dashboards are visible to all Cube admins, so you can easily collaborate.
Choose which team members to share a dashboard with while publishing or by altering the sharing permissions.
No longer need a dashboard for a particular scenario? Unpublish it to unshare it, then either keep it as a draft to publish again in the future or delete it altogether.
6. Routinely refresh dashboard data
A Cube Admin can perform a refresh to update the data referenced by all dashboards at any time by clicking the refresh icon button. This can take time, depending on the amount of data you have in your system and the number of dashboards.
Cube Admins should plan to refresh their dashboards whenever data changes are made via import or a set of publishes.
Alternatively, daily dashboard resyncs can be scheduled to run overnight or at another time to ensure your dashboards are always up to date. Open your dashboard settings to update the auto-refresh schedule.
7. Share dashboards
We know these insights will prove valuable; here are some ways to share your dashboard insights:
- Export the current dashboard tab as a PDF.
- Use a screen capture tool to capture screenshots for a presentation deck, or click the three dots on a chart and download it as a PNG. We recommend expanding the chart in the dashboard for more accuracy and then exporting it as a PNG.
- Share the dashboard link from the sharing permissions settings (team members will need a Cube account and appropriate permissions to access).
Or simply invite your team to Cube!
Our favorite way to share dashboards is by inviting your team to Cube so they can explore up-to-date data on all dashboards shared with them.
Cube automatically applies user permission settings to sensitive data, so anyone interested in seeing your company data can be added without concern that their dashboard will contain data they don't have permission for.
With direct access, various stakeholders can use the data to answer their questions. Just remember that Cube user permissions may impact the visuals they see in their dashboards.
Note: Dashboard data may take 15-20 minutes to populate for new Cube accounts.