Building a dashboard

A dashboard is one page of widgets drawn from several reports at once: tables, charts, stat tiles, statements and notes. Each widget reads its own report's stored result and updates when that report refreshes.

Dashboards live in the app, under Dashboards in the sidebar. To put a single widget on a NetSuite home dashboard, use a portlet instead.

#Who sees what

• A dashboard has its own audience, which works like a report's: Public, or any mix of roles, employees, departments and subsidiaries.
• Each widget also follows its own report's audience. A viewer who cannot open one of the reports sees a notice in that widget in place of data.
• A dashboard never shows anyone more than the reports themselves would.

#Create a dashboard

1. Open Dashboards in the sidebar and choose New Dashboard in the top bar.
2. Enter a name and a description, and pick its categories, as many as apply. The description appears in the dashboard list, so say what the page shows and who it is for. The Categories box offers only categories marked for dashboards.
3. The new dashboard opens in edit mode. Choose + Add widget, the blue button at the top left of the grid. On a dashboard with no widgets yet, the empty grid also shows + Add your first widget.
4. In the side panel, under Report, kind and title, choose the widget's Report first. Then set it up as described below.
5. Drag a widget by its title bar to move it, and drag its handle to resize it.
6. Choose Filters… to build the filter bar. See Dashboard filters.
7. Choose Settings… to set the name, description, categories and audience. You can also delete the dashboard from there.
8. Choose Save dashboard. Cancel discards the draft.

Good to know while you edit:

• A new widget appears below the last widget, at the left. Nothing already on the page moves. The page scrolls to it and selects it, so its settings are open in the side panel.
• + Add widget stays at the top of the grid while you scroll, so you can reach it from the foot of a long dashboard.
• A dashboard can hold several tables. A short one can take the Plain look: the headings and the lines, with no paging, no filter boxes and no Export. See Ranked tables and a chart's total.
• The Widgets list at the top of the side panel selects any widget, including one hidden under another. The editor draws the selected widget on top so that you can drag it out.
• To change a dashboard later, open it, click the gear icon at the top and choose Edit dashboard.

#Widget kinds

Every widget can carry a commentary: a few sentences of your own, with live figures, under the widget or beside it. A dashboard can be split into pages shown as tabs, and presented one page at a time with Present.

#The side panel

Select a widget to open its settings on the right. The panel has these sections, from top to bottom:

A bar or line chart also has, under What it shows, its Series and + Add a second measure. Charts on a report describes what each one draws.

• A ? beside a header or a field explains it in a sentence or two. Point at it, or move to it with the Tab key. Escape closes it.
• On a short screen the panel scrolls on its own, down and sideways.

#What a widget shows

Most widgets turn the report's rows into a figure under What it shows:

Rules that apply:

• A month column holds months, not days, so Week on it shows months.
• With no title typed for the bottom axis, the chart titles it with the bucket.
• A figure takes its column's format: money as money, a percent column as a percentage, and a count as a whole number.
• Filter, the next section, keeps only some rows: a relative period such as This year, Last quarter or Fiscal year to date, a date range, or a condition on a column. See "The Filter section" below.
• closing value is for a balance, such as cash or receivables. It takes the rows of the latest date and adds them up, where sum would add every month together. See Fiscal periods, year to date and balances.

#The Filter section

A widget can have several conditions. A row is kept when it meets every one, such as Item class is any of A, B or C, and Amount greater than 0.

1. Choose the Filter type: Relative period, Date range or Value comparison.
2. For a value comparison, pick the Column and the Comparison.
3. Choose Add a condition for another one. To remove a condition, set its Filter type to (none, remove this condition).

The comparisons:

• is any of and is none of show a checklist of the values in the report's rows, with how many rows carry each. Past eight values a search box narrows the list. With nothing ticked, the condition keeps every row.
• To take a value the rows do not hold yet, type it in Add a value by hand and choose Add. A ticked value the rows no longer hold stays in the list, marked not in results.
• While you type in equals, the box offers the column's values that contain what you typed.
• Under each condition, the panel says how many rows it keeps. A value no row holds keeps none, and the panel offers the values closest to it, such as Did you mean West? Click one to use it.
• With two conditions or more, the panel also says how many rows they keep together.
• The conditions apply to every kind of widget, the comparison trend included, and to the widget in a printed page, an email, a PDF and a NetSuite portlet.

#What goes where on a chart

A chart has two choices, named for where they end up on the chart you are looking at:

• With a Group by set, the chart fills both in for you: the first is the Group by column and the second is the Aggregate. What goes where then shows the two as text.
• Clear Group by to pick the two columns yourself.
• Under How it looks, a bar or line chart can carry a title for each direction: Title along the bottom and Title up the side, or Title down the side and Title along the bottom for a horizontal bar.

#Bar charts with many bars

• A horizontal bar chart gives each bar one label on one line. A label too long for its column ends in an ellipsis, and pointing at it shows the full name.
• When the bars need more room than the widget has, the chart scrolls inside the widget. The value axis stays in view at the bottom.
• On paper the same chart grows to the height it needs and pushes the widgets below it down.

#Distinct count and median over detail rows

A summary report stored by month cannot give a distinct count or a median by quarter. The figures have already been added up.

Build the widget over the detail report instead, where each row is one line. A bucketed distinct count or median is then exact at any grain, for example distinct vendors per quarter or median days to proposal per year.

#Lines, Series and the dashed future

• A line chart grouped on a date or month column runs in date order.
• A Series column draws one line for each value, such as purchase orders expected against bills received.
• Past today, each line is dashed and a Today marker shows the current bucket.

#Comparison trend

Under What it shows, set these in order:

1. Dates along the bottom: a date, datetime or month column.
2. The Aggregate and its column.
3. The Period.
4. Compared with: the period right before, the same period a year earlier, or your own dates.
5. + Compare with another period, to add up to three more periods. Each one is the period right before, two to four periods before, the same period one to three years earlier, or your own dates. For this year, last year and the year before, set Compared with to the period right before and add Two periods before. Remove takes one off.
6. Points per: day, week, month, quarter, fiscal quarter where the fiscal year does not start in January, or automatic. Use the dashboard's Group by, under it, lets the dashboard's Group by dropdown set the points.
7. + Add a second measure, to draw a second figure over the same periods, such as total units beside average cost. Choose its aggregate and column, its name, and Its scale. Chosen for you gives it a scale of its own at the right when the two are not in the same unit, such as an amount and a count. Remove the second measure takes it off.

The chart draws the reported period solid and each comparison dashed, lined up by position. The first comparison is grey, and each one after it takes the next colour of the chart palette. Each comparison has a dash of its own and is lighter the further back it is. A second measure draws a line for each period in orange, dashed the same way. Under How it looks, Colours changes these colours, and Chart text and Number format apply to every line, the key, the hover card and both scales.

A trend draws six lines at most. With a second measure it compares with two periods at most, so three periods of two measures. A comparison past the second stays saved, and the panel says it is not drawn. It is drawn again once you remove the second measure.

#Stat tiles

• The caption under a stat tile's figure names the period it covers.
• When one of its conditions is a relative period, the tile compares automatically against the period right before. Its other conditions hold on both sides: this month for class A is compared with last month for class A. Set Compared with to The same period a year earlier to compare this quarter with the same quarter of last year.
• A tile filtered to Year to date or Fiscal year to date is compared with the same span one year earlier.
• Tick Advanced: choose the comparison manually to pick a different one.
• Name of the comparison replaces the dates after "vs" with your own word, such as FY25 or Budget.
• Change shown as writes the change as an amount, a percentage or percentage points. Choosing a percentage column for the tile starts it on points.
• Show a coloured edge draws the edge and the word Good, Warning or Bad. A higher figure is says which way is good. Warning up to sets how far the wrong way a figure may go before it is bad.
• With a target and an edge, The colour follows chooses between the comparison and the target.
• Caption adds the date the figure is as of, or your own words.
• In a row of tiles where one uses these settings, every tile starts from the top of its box, so the figures line up. A row where none does is centred as before.
• Target is a number you type in.
• A long figure gets smaller until it fits its tile.

#Numbers: full or compact

Numbers, in the gear menu at the top of a dashboard, switches every figure between full ($9,809,607.48) and compact ($9.81M, 1.5K).

• The author sets the default with Numbers in the editor's toolbar.
• Every viewer can choose otherwise. The browser keeps the choice for that dashboard.
• Compact reaches every figure of a widget: a stat tile's change and its gap to target, a comparison chart's two totals, and the hover cards.
• A widget whose Number format sets Figures to Compact or In full keeps that choice.

#Clicking a widget

A reader can click a bar, a slice, a point of a line, the name on a line of a grouped table, or a stat tile's number. The report behind the widget opens, filtered to what was clicked.

To switch the click off for one widget, select the widget, and under When clicked set A click to Does nothing. See Clicking a dashboard widget.

#Refresh a dashboard

Refresh dashboard, the button with two arrows at the top of the dashboard, rebuilds every report its widgets read with one click.

1. Click Refresh dashboard.
2. Watch the count, such as Refreshing reports, 2 of 5 done, with the time elapsed. Each widget whose report is being rebuilt carries a small Refreshing mark on its title bar and keeps showing the figures it had.
3. As each report finishes, its widgets redraw with the new figures. You do not need to reload the page.
4. When the last report finishes, the count turns into a short confirmation, such as 5 reports updated, and then into a note beside the button, Updated just now.

Who can use it, and on what:

• Anyone who can open the dashboard can use it.
• It refreshes only the reports you can open yourself, and it skips an archived report.
• The button is not shown while you edit the layout.
• A report refreshed in the last two minutes is left alone, and the dashboard tells you which. This is the same cooldown as Refresh on a report page, set by refresh.manual_cooldown_seconds.

While a refresh is under way, the page asks the server how the reports stand every three seconds, and every fifteen seconds after five minutes. It stops when they have all finished, and after thirty minutes in any case. You can leave the dashboard and come back. If the refresh is still under way, the dashboard shows it again. See Refresh and scheduling.

#Print a dashboard, or download it as a PDF

The gear menu at the top of a dashboard offers two ways to put it on paper.

#Print this page

1. Set the filters and the Group by you want on paper.
2. Click the gear icon. Under Print this page, pick the paper, Portrait or Landscape. Your choice is kept in this browser.
3. Choose Print this page, or press Ctrl+P.
4. The page draws the charts again at the width of the paper, then opens the print dialog.

What the paper shows:

• Letter paper, portrait or landscape as you chose, with the dashboard's title, the filters in effect written out, the Group by value when the dashboard has one, and the date printed. Landscape gives wide tables and statements 10 inches where portrait gives 7.5.
• Every widget whole. A widget that fits on one sheet is never split across two. A longer one breaks between rows with its header repeated.
• A table with every row of the page it shows, and long text wrapped. A table on the Plain look prints the lines it shows on screen, in the same columns.
• A statement too wide for the page in bands of months, each repeating the account names. A comparison table prints the same way.
• A stat tile taller than on screen when its figures need the room, and the tiles beside it with it. Its coloured edge prints with or without background graphics.
• Charts with their series, the values written on them, their reference lines and their second scale, as on screen. A value that would be written over another is left out at the width of the paper.
• The name of the report behind a widget in the widget's heading when it fits whole. It is left out when it does not.

Ctrl+P does nothing special while you edit the layout. Printing has been tried in Chrome and Edge, not yet in Safari or Firefox.

#Download as PDF

1. Set the filters, the Group by and Numbers as you want them in the file.
2. Click the gear icon, then choose Download as PDF.
3. The gear reads Making the PDF… while the server draws it. A large dashboard can take a minute.
4. The browser saves the file, named after the dashboard and the date. A note under the gear names the file.

What the file holds:

• The filters in the bar, the Group by and the Numbers style you had on screen when you asked.
• The layout of an emailed PDF: widgets one under another, charts drawn, wide tables in bands, page numbers and the time it was made. See Scheduled emails.
• Only what you may open. A widget over a report outside your audience is left out and named.

The limits of an emailed PDF apply, and the page says so when one is reached:

A filter typed in the header of a table widget is not part of the file. The filter bar is.

A dashboard shown inside another app has Print this page in its gear menu, which prints the page on portrait paper. It has no Download as PDF. A widget on a NetSuite home dashboard has no print of its own.

#Schedule a dashboard by email

Schedule an email, in the gear menu at the top of a dashboard, sends it to a list of people on a schedule, in the body of the email or as a PDF. The entry shows when your role may schedule emails. See Scheduled emails.

#The dashboard list

The Dashboards page shows each dashboard with its description, categories, owner and widget count, as cards or a table. A dashboard in several categories is listed under each of them in the sidebar.

• Authors can change a dashboard's audience from its chip.
• Select turns on selection mode, with Set Audience, Archive and Delete for the selected dashboards.
• The Show control switches between All and Archived.

#If something looks wrong

Related: Commentary on a widget · Ranked tables and a chart's total · Sections, pages and present mode · Fiscal periods, year to date and balances · Dashboard filters · Clicking a dashboard widget · The Statement widget · The Comparison table widget · Showing a dashboard in another app · Charts on a report · Adding a report to a NetSuite dashboard