Smart Dashboards Part I: Overview

Smart Dashboards Part I: Overview

1. This tutorial presents an overview of the features/functions of Smart Dashboards.
2. Smart Dashboards are advanced, interactive dashboards for Fundraising/Donations, Events, and Memberships (different from the Basic Dashboard).
3. The Smart Dashboards have more data points/metrics than the Basic Dashboard, more filters than the Basic Dashboard, and allow exporting (to Excel) of both summary and drill down data (unlike the Basic Dashboard).

   

   

4. The Smart Dashboard feature has to be activated for each user by your system admin (Smart Dashboards are a paid add-on/premium feature). See the Smart Dashboards Part II: Activating the Smart Dashboards tutorial for how to activate the Smart Dashboard for any user and pricing.
5. Every user can self-activate a 15-day free trial of the Smart Dashboard to try out the Smart Dashboard. To continue using the Smart Dashboard after the 15-day free trial, your system administrator will need to activate the paid version for you.
6. Once activated (free trial or paid account), the user can toggle back and forth between the Basic Dashboard and the Smart Dashboard using the toggle in the upper right hand corner of the screen.
7. Smart Dashboards (once activated) are accessible from the Main Menu.

   

8. Each of the four Smart Dashboards (fundraising, donor classification, events, & membership) display data for the last three calendar years (current calendar year plus two previous calendar years) (maximum # of years of data that can be shown).
9. Each dashboard page has two vertical scroll bars - one for the entire page and one for the dashboard/the iframe in which the dashboard is embedded If the bottom of the screen is cut off and you can't see the inner scroll bar, you will need to change your screen resolution settings (try hitting Control plus the + sign to change the dimensions/zoom on the iframe. If that doesn't work, then you'll need to change your screen resolution settings in your computer's control panel).

   

10. Smart Dashboards update overnight; any changes to the underlying data will not be reflected on the dashboard until the next day.
11. For any place there is no data to display (the count/total equals 0), the  dashboard will display (Blank) (instead of 0). This is normal functioning.

    

12. In the upper right hand corner, the two-headed arrow icon (Enter Full Screen Mode) will expand the dashboard to cover the full screen (maximized for mobile viewing and for presentations). Press the Escape (esc) key to exit full screen mode.

    

    

13. On the left hand side of the screen (in all Dashboards), you will see a list of filter options (varies by Dashboard). Upon selecting any filter, the entire Dashboard will refresh, filtered on your selection. For example, if you select Fund Name as a filter on the Fundraising dashboard, after selecting which Fund(s) you wish to filter the data by, the entire Dashboard will refresh and show only donations that were made to the selected Fund(s).

    

    

    

    

14. You can erase a filter selection/reset the dashboard to remove that filter by hovering over the upper right hand corner of the filter box and clicking on the eraser icon. Click the eraser and the filter will be removed from the Dashboard.

    

15. For all charts (on all dashboards), clicking on a line (year) will filter the entire dashboard/all charts & tables by the year. For example, here we have clicked on the red (2018) line in the Giving Trend Summary chart and now the entire Fundraising dashboard is filtered to show only 2018 data. You can see this reflected in the data range selected and also by the fact the other lines/colors are now grayed out. Please Note: The Membership dashboard works slightly differently - because the Membership Dashboard is by default filtered to show only data for the current year, clicking on a chart line to filter the dashboard by line will not work. Instead, use the year filter in the left-hand panel to filter by year. For more information, see Smart Dashboards Part IIIc: Membership Dashboard.
    

    

    

16. Clicking on the same line again or the year dot in the legend will remove the data filter/show all data once again.
17. Hovering over a chart will reveal chart controls/options in the upper left hand corner of that chart - Focus Mode and More Options.

    

18. Focus Mode pops the chart out full screen (Please Note: this is the same function as More Options: Show Data. Please see details of the Show Data function in Step #19). Click Back to Report to go back to the main dashboard.

    

    

19. More Options: Export Data allows you to export the data underlying that chart. When you select this, a box will pop up asking if you want to export the summary data or the underlying (full) data and to choose the file format - excel or csv. Please Note: full data can only be exported to excel format (and not to csv format). Make your selections and then click the yellow Export on the pop up window. Please also note: the exports are fixed templates. You cannot make any changes to the columns exported (add columns). If you want to see additional data, you will need to write your own custom report in the reports module (though we are happy to hear of ways the Smart Dashboards can be enhanced so don't hesitate to make recommendations). However, the export will export the data in the chart/table as it is displayed - that is, if you have applied filters to the dashboard, then the filtered data is what will export (rather than all data). In this way, you can use the Smart Dashboard as a reporting tool.

    

    

    

    

20. More Options: Show Data allows you to see just that chart/table on the screen (good for presentations) (Please Note: this is the same function as Focus Mode (detailed in Step #17 above)). In addition, if the selected object is a chart, you will see the same data in table form on the callout page (if the selected object is a table then you will see the table repeated/displayed twice. It's the same data in both tables. In the third screen shot below, we have chosen Show Data on the Fundraising: Campaign Tables. Because this object is already a table, the table is listed twice on the page (same data in both tables)). Click the Back to Report button to go back to the full Dashboard.

    

    

    

21. While in More Options: Show Data mode, you will see two options in the upper right hand corner. The first option moves the table (shown in the lower half of the screen) up to the right (side by side mode) of the chart.

    

    

    

22. The second option (3 dots) allows you to export data from this screen, change the sort order, and change the sort field.

    

23. More Options: Spotlight fades/grays out all of the other data/objects on the page. This can be helpful during presentations to call out/get the audience of focus on a particular box. Click on the menu and choose Spotlight again to turn off the Spotlight function/to return to the full dashboard.

    

    

24. More Options: Sort Ascending and Sort Descending allow you to change the sort order of the data in the object. In the example below, the Total Number of Donors Per Month Per Year chart is sorted in ascending order (January - December). We then changed it to Descending order and now the chart is sorted December to January. Please Note: if you are attempting to change the sort order on a chart, you MUST first select a sort by/sort field option (see step #23 below) and then you can change the sort order For tables, a sort by is already selected, so you can change the sort order without first selecting a sort by field.
    

    

    

25. More Options: Sort By allows you to change the field that the object is sorted on.

    

26. To learn more about the specific tables/charts on each dashboard and what data they contain, please see the various Smart Dashboard Part III tutorials - IIIa details the Fundraising Dashboard (both tabs), IIIb details the Events Dashboard, and IIIc details the Membership Dashboard.