Creating a dashboard

From empty to something people use. Two routes into the builder, and an order of work that matters more than any individual setting.

From empty to something people use. Two routes into the builder, and an order of work that matters more than any individual setting.

Create one

Two routes. From the Dashboards library icon in the left sidebar, click Create dashboard, then pick a prebuilt template or a blank dashboard and click Select. Or, while you are in a report, use Save > Add to dashboard and choose a new dashboard.

1. Decide who it is for and what they decide with it. This is the step that determines whether the dashboard gets used.
2. Create it and name it for that audience.
3. Add the headline number first: click Add at the top left, then Add report, and pick one or more.
4. Add the supporting reports, and use + in the right-hand toolbar for the other components: filters and text. Drag to arrange, drag a corner to resize.
5. Add tabs with + in edit mode if one screen is not enough, choosing a template or Blank tab.
6. Show it to one of the intended readers before sharing it widely.

Both routes need the Editor level in Explore, which an agent has only where somebody granted it.

Everything you place on a dashboard is a component, which is what Zendesk used to call a widget. If your screen does not match this, you may be on the legacy builder: the current one arrived in November 2024.

Step one is the whole job

"A dashboard for support" produces a collection of charts. "A dashboard the team lead opens each Monday to decide where to put people this week" produces something used.

Show it to a real reader early

Before it is finished. They will say which number they look at and which they ignore, and that conversation removes half the reports.

Name it for the audience

"Weekly team review" tells people whether to open it. "Support metrics v3" does not, and it will be sitting in the list unopened in a year.

Filters: two or three

Date range, and perhaps group or brand. Every additional filter is a way for a reader to produce a number nobody intended and then quote it.

Put the definitions on it

What is excluded, which dates are used, when it refreshes. That text prevents the recurring meeting where two people compare different numbers for the same thing.

Then leave it alone

A dashboard that changes every week cannot be compared over time, and people stop trusting what they saw last month. Change it deliberately, and say when you have.

See also

• Adding and arranging reports
• Dashboard filters that work
• Sharing a dashboard with colleagues