How to Build a Custom Dashboard for Reporting

Learn the basics in creating a new dashboard with tiles relevant to your custom reports!

Ben On avatar
Written by Ben On
Updated over a week ago

Available On: Business Plus


Custom Dashboards empower administrators to craft unique dashboards using UpKeep data. This helps users enhance their ability to tackle intricate business inquiries, deliver pertinent KPI reports to stakeholders, and innovate data exploration. šŸ“ˆšŸ”šŸ’¼"

Some possible sample reports include:

  • Checklists/tasks included in preventive maintenance inspections or work orders

  • Cycle counts for parts inventory

  • Parts awaiting fulfillment from purchase orders

TIP: Once you understand what a Tile is, you can begin building your custom dashboard!


How to Create a Custom Dashboard

1 - Visit your Analytics section in UpKeep

2 - Click on Create Custom Dashboard

3 - Add a Dashboard Name

4 - Once your dashboard is created, you'll see your dashboard name on the top left.

5 - Click on Edit Dashboard to enter Edit Mode!


How to Add a Query Tile (Data Visualization)

This is likely to be the most common step when building your custom reports/dashboard. Refer to the article on what each tile is for more information!

1 - If youā€™re in a dashboard, you can build a query tile from inside the dashboard.

Once in the dashboardā€™s edit mode, you can either:

  • Click Add Tile from the top left of the dashboard pane and then click Visualization, or

  • Click the Add Tile button in the center of the dashboard pane, if the dashboard is currently blank.

2 - Next, you'll see a menu of Explores. Choose an Explore to build your query:

3 - This then opens the Explore window to let you build your query:

  1. Give your query a name. This will be the name of the tile on the dashboard.

  2. Select the fields and filters for your query.

  3. Configure your visualization options.

  4. Once you have set up your query, click Run.

  5. Click Save to save the query as a tile on your dashboard.

TIP/NOTE: For each dashboard, we recommend sticking to one Explore. So all tiles on the dashboard relate to only work order data, only asset data, etc. Mixing different Explores may cause confusion when setting filters for your dashboard!


How to Add a Text Tile

Once a dashboard is in edit mode, you can add text tiles to it by clicking Add Tile from the top left of the dashboard pane and then clicking Text.

This brings up a window where you can add a title, subtitle, and body. All of these elements are optional.

Titles and subtitles support some HTML, including links and images. You can also use some HTML in the bodies of text tiles. However, text tiles converted from original dashboards may not render as expected.

Once you save it, you will see your text tile at the bottom of the dashboard. It can then be moved and resized just as you would move and resize other tiles.


Rearranging and Resizing Tiles

When in edit mode, you can move and resize tiles on a dashboard by clicking and dragging. Click and drag on the six-dot icon in the upper left of a tile to move it. Click and drag on the bottom right corner of the tile to resize it.

  1. Click and drag to move the tile

  2. Click and drag to resize the tile

Tile size and grid layout

When you add a visualization using grid layout to a dashboard, the grid arrangement can become responsive to the size of the dashboard tile.

For example, say you have a dashboard tile with a visualization that uses a grid layout of four small charts. If you size the tile to be short and wide, the small charts appear as one row of four. If you size the tile as a square, the small charts are repositioned to two rows of two. Or, if you size the tile to be narrow but tall, the charts are repositioned to four rows of one.

NOTE: To ensure that the grid arrangement is responsive, do not enter a number into the visualization's Number of Charts per Row setting. If you enter a value into Number of Charts per Row, the dashboard tile will respect that setting regardless of the size or shape of the dashboard tile.

Example screenshot:

Tile size and grid layout example

Editing A Saved Tile

When a dashboard is in edit mode, the three-dot menu at the top right of each tile shows edit options and you can make various changes to the tile itself.

Editing a query tile title

Once your dashboard is in edit mode, you can quickly edit a query tileā€™s title simply by clicking on the tile and making your edits. Click Save at the upper right of the dashboard to save your changes.

NOTE:

When editing a dashboard tile that contains a funnel chart or a timeline chart, you may notice that the charts look different on the dashboard tile than they do in the edit window.

Hiding or showing a tile title

While editing, you can hide or show the title of a tile. By default, tile titles are shown. You can hide a title by clicking Hide title in the tileā€™s three-dot menu.

Once the title is hidden, the tileā€™s three-dot menu displays an option to show the title of the tile.

The hide/show option does not appear in the three-dot menu of text tiles or tiles that use single-value visualizations.

  • To hide or show the title of a single value visualization, click Edit in the tileā€™s three-dot menu, toggle the Show Title switch in the style menu, and save.

  • To hide or show a title of a text tile, click Edit in the tileā€™s three-dot menu, remove or reinstate the tile title, and save.


Adding a Tile Note

To add a note to a tile, make sure the dashboard is in edit mode, and then click the Add note button in the tileā€™s three-dot menu:

You will see the following window, letting you enter the note text and select a couple of display options:

  1. Enter the note text you want to show on the tile. You can use plain text or HTML.

  2. Select the location of the note. The options are above the visualization, below the visualization, or as hover text that appears when users hover over a circled i icon to the right of the tile title.

  3. Check this box to collapse the note by default. A collapsed note shows only the first line, with an ellipsis at the end of the line. Unchecking this box displays the noteā€™s full text by default. If you select On icon hover under Display Location, you will not see this option.

  4. Add the note to the tile, or cancel it.

The note appears on the tile with a collapse/expand arrow to the left of the note. Clicking that arrow or anywhere on the note toggles between collapsed and expanded displays.

Once you add a note to a tile, the tileā€™s three-dot tile menu changes to display Edit note instead of Add note. Click Edit note to reveal a pop-up window similar to the above that will allow you to edit or delete your note.


Duplicating a Tile

While editing, you can duplicate query tiles by clicking Duplicate tile from the tileā€™s menu:

A copy of the tile with the same query and visualization settings will be created and added to the bottom of the dashboard.

From there, you can move or resize the tile, edit the tile title, or edit the new tile to adjust the visualization or the underlying query.


Deleting a Tile

While editing, you can delete a tile from a dashboard by selecting Delete from the tileā€™s three-dot menu.

This deletion cannot be undone.


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