The following is the sample dashboard in Design Mode.

The following is the same dashboard in Design Mode.

1 - Custom Title added in the Dashboard

2 - User Filters added in the Dashboard

3 - KPI widgets added in the Dashboard

4 - Reports added in the Dashboard

5 - List of Reports in the workspace to drag into the Dashboard

The above is a sample layout of a dashboard, which could be customized. This following sections describes how to create a Dashboard and layout it as needed.

 Creating a Dashboard

Once you have created your reports/views that you want in Zoho Analytics you can start designing your Dashboard. Zoho Analytics offers an easy to use drag and drop interface to design your dashboard. To create a Dashboard, click the Create icon from the side panel and select the New Dashboard option. The Edit Design window will open. Design your dashboard as needed.

The following video explains how to create a dashboard.

 Adding Reports

Zoho Analytics allows you to add reports to your dashboard easily with a drag and drop interface.
Follow the steps below to add reports to your dashboard.

1. Open the dashboard in edit mode.

2. You will notice that all the reports available in this workspace listed in the left panel, which you can drop into the Design Area on the right and resize them to fit your need.

    

3. Once the reports are added to the Dashboard, click Save.

You can add any number of reports in the dashboard. To know how to layout your dashboard with multiple reports, refer here.

Adding tabs

Zoho Analytics allows you to add multiple tabs to your dashboards, to give you additional layers to your analysis. Each tab can accommodate an entire dashboard or a few reports. A maximum of ten tabs can be added to a dashboard, and can be added either while creating a new dashboard or added to existing dashboards.
Follow the steps below to add tabs to a dashboard:

• While creating a new dashboard, click the Add Tab button. The existing views will be listed under a tab named New Tab 1, and a new tab will be created.

To add more tabs, click the + icon. You can add a maximum of ten tabs within a single dashboard.

• To add tabs to existing dashboards, click the Edit Design button, and click the Add tab button that appears in the Edit Design window.

You can also edit existing tabs easily. Follow the steps below to do this:

• To rename a tab, click the More Options icon that appear on mouse over the tab name, and select the Rename option.

• The Duplicate and Remove options will allow you to duplicate or delete the selected tab. 

 Adding Formatted Text, Images & HTML

Zoho Analytics allows you to enhance your dashboard by adding rich formatted text, images and HTML content to enrich your dashboard with relevant contextual information and styling.

To add text:

1. Click Add Text option from the toolbar or double click on any point in the Design Area.

2. Enter the content in the Text Editor that opens.

    

3. You can insert an image by clicking image icon.

4. You can also insert content using HTML editor. Will be useful to insert any Web components like Youtube video etc.

5. Click Insert button. The content you have added will be inserted.

Zoho Analytics allows you to organize the added text as needed at any time. To know how to layout your dashboard, refer here.

 Adding KPI Widgets

Zoho Analytics offers a widget-based model for adding single number and chart type widgets within dashboards. These are called KPI Widgets. This is a pretty useful feature to highlight any key metric in a dashboard for easy comprehension. The key metric can also be accompanied with associated comparison indicators to highlight the trend or plotted against a target to show progression.

On a wider level, Zoho Analytics offers,

1. Single number widget

2. Chart type widget

Adding a single number KPI Widget

 Adding User Filters

Zoho Analytics allows you to include dynamic filtering capability in the dashboard view mode using the User Filters option. This enables viewers of the dashboard to apply filters dynamically and view the required information. You can add User Filters to the entire dashboard or for the individual reports embedded as required.

The following sections explain how to add User Filters.

To add User Filters to the dashboard:

1. In the Edit Mode User Filters section will be available. Click Add User Filters button.

2. All columns relavent to the reports added in the dashboard will be listed in the column panel at the left. Drag and drop the required columns to be used as user filters.

3. Editing user filters column is similar to editing user filters for charts (or pivot table or summary view).

• You can choose to expand or collapse the user filter as required.

Zoho Analytics allows you to add user filters available in the embedded reports into dashboard too. This is a easy & convenient way to add users filters to a dashboard, without the need to repeat the task of user filters creation again.

To achieve this:

1. Select the Auto Add User Filters check box from the User Filters field.

2. Add reports with user filters to the dashboard. User filters in these reports will be automatically added to the dashboard.

You can also add user filters for individual reports that have been added in a dashboard.

To achieve this:

1. Create a report (chart/pivot/summary view) with User Filters.

2. Add this report to the dashboard.

3. Hover your mouse over the added Report.

4. Select the Show User Filter check box from the Options. Click Apply.

User Filters will be added to the corresponding report alone.

Zoho Analytics will display an alert over a user filters column that is longer relevant to the dashboard i.e. all reports that use this column are removed from the dashboard. You can easily remove the user filters by hovering your mouse over the corresponding column and selecting Remove. You cannot save the dashboard without removing these columns.

Zoho Analytics allows you to create a common Date or Period user filters that can be applied on all reports in the dashboard. This user filter is different from the other filters (described above), as it is not tightly bound to any (date) column in a table.

With this timeline filter you will be able to setup a common Date or Period user filter independent of the tables on which the reports have been created. When you use the timeline filter in a dashboard, Zoho Analytics will apply the criteria on all reports, matching it with the best possible date column associated with the report. By default, if the report has a date column, it will filter using it. The matching date columns can also be customized, refer to this section to know how.

Since this is a common period filter, you can setup only one timeline filter in a dashboard.

To add a timeline filter,

• Click Add User Filter button and select Include Timeline Filter check box (or drag and drop) as shown in the snapshot.

• Click the edit icon that appears on hovering the mouse on the timeline filter. In the Edit Timeline Filterdialog that opens, you can change the filter name in the Filter Display Name box.

• Click the Edit link to change the values that you wish to display in the Timeline filter.

• You can select the values by selecting the check boxes.

• Click Apply to add the filter.

When you apply this filter, by default it will be applied only on those reports that have a date column as a part of it. The date columns can be customized using the Timeline filter column mapping section(as shown in the below snapshot).

• In the Date columns to use for filtering section you can specify the date column to be filtered. You can specify multiple columns as well.

• You can also specify the order for applying filters in this section

  • On date columns used in the report (default option)- choose this option to apply the timeline filter on the date column used in the report which is a part of the dashboard.

  • On date columns in the table on which the report has been created - choose this option to apply the timeline filter on the reports present in the table on which the report is created, although the report does not contain a date column itself.

  • On date columns in related tables - choose this to apply the timeline filter on the reports in the dashboard which does not contain a date column in its table but has a date column that is contained in a related table.

• Click Apply. This filter will be applied.

You can merge duplicate user filters from different tables as one common filter. The animation below shows the merging of user filters with a simple drag and drop. 

You can add or remove the mapped columns from these filters as shown below. 

Note: 

• You cannot remove the primary user filter column over which the other user filters are merged.

• You cannot merge two columns from a table into the same user filter.

• Merging User Filter is applicable only for Text columns.

• Values from this primary column alone will be listed as filter values. 

Reports as Filters

Zoho Analytics allows you to configure reports to act as filters in your dashboard. This allows you to dynamically filter dashboards based on the data points in a report.

To enable this feature, open the required dashboard, click the Settings icon at the top right corner and select the Enable Reports to act as Filters option.

Once the feature is enabled, navigate to a report in the dashboard and click on any data point. The following filtering options will be available: 

• Filter including this value: The dashboard will be filtered to display only data corresponding to the selected value. 

• Filter excluding this value: The dashboard will be filtered to exclude the data corresponding to the selected value.

Layouting components in Dashboards

Zoho Analytics provides a flexible m x n layout Dashboard. You can organize the dashboard in any way. You can simply drag and drop the components in the Edit mode of the dashboard.

 Reorganizing Components 

You can rearrange the components in a dashboard into any location needed by drag and drop. As you drag, other components will be automatically arranged.

You can also reorganize multiple components together. Select components in the same row and/or column and drag them to the required location. The following animation explains how to re-organize multiple components. 

 Resizing components

You can resize the components in the dashboard anytime using one of the following options. 

• Drag to Resize
• Copy Dimensions
• Fit to Width
• Fill Space

You can easily resize the component by dragging the border. As you drag, a purple line will appear marking the borders of surrounding views. This will be useful to arrange the views in the desired way. 

You can also resize multiple components together. Select components the same row and/or column and drag them to resize. 
The following animation explains how to resize multiple components together. 

Zoho Analytics allows you to apply a uniform dimension to multiple components using the Copy-Paste Dimension option. You can select the component with the desired dimensions and select the Copy Dimensions option from the contextual toolbar that appears at the bottom. Then, select the components you wish to apply the dimensions to, and click Paste. You can choose to copy the width or height, or both. 

The following animation explains how to copy-paste dimensions from one component to another. 

The Fit components to width option allows you to resize the components to fill the available space proportionately. Select components from the same row and of the same height, and click the Fit to Width option from the contextual toolbar that appears. The components will be resized with proportionate width to fit in the available space. 

You can resize components to fill the space in the dashboard layout. The following animation explains how to resize to fill extra spaces.

Remove Components

You can easily remove the components from dashboards anytime. To remove a component, click the Remove button that appears on mouse over.

To remove multiple components together, select the components you want to remove and click the Trash icon from the contextual toolbar.

Customizing Dashboard

Zoho Analytics provides context-specific customizing options for all view that you dropped in a dashboard. You can also apply themes to improve the look and feel of your dashboard. To know more, refer to the Customizing Dashboard section. 

The below is a final Dashboard with customized theme.