Dashboards and charts

A dashboard is a page of widgets that shows your data at a glance. Most widgets are charts: a count, a total or an average over one of your entities, grouped by a field or by time. Your team opens the dashboard and reads the numbers, with no queries and no API calls.

How dashboards work#

Every dashboard is one of two kinds.

• The project default. One dashboard per project, managed by administrators. Everyone can see it. Until someone has a dashboard of their own, it's what they land on. A new project starts with a default of quick-action cards and a getting-started card.
• Personal dashboards. Each person can create their own. A personal dashboard is private until its owner shares it.

Each person also has one Home dashboard, the one that opens when they sign in. The first personal dashboard you create becomes your Home automatically. You can point Home at any dashboard you own.

Widgets sit on a 12-column grid with rows 90 pixels tall. Each widget has a position (x, y) and a size (w, h), and you drag and resize them in customise mode.

Who can see and change what#

Access is controlled by the anythink_dashboards permission, with the actions read, create, update and delete. Roles that come with a new project include it. For a custom role, tick it on the role: see Roles and permissions. Saving a chart is a separate permission: charts use anythink_entities (read, create, update, delete), so a person who builds charts needs it too.

A chart only counts the records its viewer is allowed to read. Row-level rules still apply, so two people can see different numbers on the same shared chart: see Groups and row-level security.

Create a dashboard and arrange widgets#

anythink fetch /dashboards --method POST --body '{
  "name": "Sales",
  "description": "Weekly numbers",
  "widgets": [
    {"type":"markdown","title":"Read me","config_json":"{\"body\":\"Numbers update live.\"}","sort_order":0}
  ]
}'

anythink fetch /dashboards/12 --method PUT --body '{
  "layout_json": "[{\"widgetId\":64,\"x\":0,\"y\":0,\"w\":6,\"h\":4},{\"widgetId\":65,\"x\":6,\"y\":0,\"w\":6,\"h\":2}]"
}'

Build a chart#

A chart is defined by where the data comes from, how it's combined and how it's shown.

Data source

Chart type

For a table of records, use a List widget or a materialised view instead of a chart.

Aggregates, buckets and dimensions

• Aggregate. Choose count, sum, avg, min or max. Anything except count needs a numeric Y field to work on.
• X axis (bucket). For bar, line and area charts, pick the field for the horizontal axis. If it's a date or timestamp, pick a bucket: hour, day, week, month, quarter or year. Weeks start on Monday.
• Group by. For a pie chart, pick the field to split by.
• Stack by. Splits each bar or line into one series per value of a second field, such as one series per channel.
• Related fields. The X axis and Stack by can follow relationships, so you can group orders by the name of the customer they belong to. Chains of up to three relationships are supported.
• Sort and limit. Sort orders the groups by the X axis, ascending or descending. Limit caps how many groups come back (up to 100,000).
• Cumulative. Turns a line into a running total.

Filters, timeframe and comparison

• Filters. Add conditions on the entity's fields. The operators are eq, ne, gt, gte, lt, lte, contains, in, exists and not_exists.
• Timeframe. Choose All time, Last 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, 365 days or a Custom range with a start and end date. Offset (days) shifts the whole window back, for example to look at the 30 days before the last 30.
• Compare. Turn on Compare to measure the timeframe against the period before it. The chart shows the percentage change. It compares against a window of the same length, or against the number of days you set. Show on chart overlays the earlier period on the line.
• Target. On a gauge, set a target and say whether it's A goal or A limit. For quota charts you can use your plan's quota as the target.

The percentage change is 0 when both periods are zero, and empty when the earlier period is zero but the current one isn't, because there's nothing to measure growth against.

Funnels

A funnel has a list of stages, each with a label and optional filters, shown as a vertical, horizontal or sankey funnel.

• Entity mode counts records in one entity, with each stage's filters added to the ones before it.
• Cohort mode counts distinct people or items across entities. Pick a cohort field that every stage's entity has, such as user_id. Each stage can use its own entity, a within days window and a minimum count.

anythink fetch /charts --method POST --body '{
  "name": "Orders by channel",
  "chartType": "pie",
  "entityName": "orders",
  "xField": "channel",
  "yAgg": "count",
  "timeframePreset": "30d"
}'

anythink fetch /charts --method POST --body '{
  "name": "Revenue per day",
  "chartType": "line",
  "entityName": "orders",
  "xField": "created_at",
  "xInterval": "day",
  "yAgg": "sum",
  "yField": "amount",
  "stackBy": "channel",
  "timeframePreset": "7d",
  "compareEnabled": true
}'

anythink fetch /charts --method POST --body '{
  "name": "Web orders",
  "chartType": "stat",
  "entityName": "orders",
  "timeframePreset": "30d",
  "filters": [{"field":"channel","op":"eq","value":"web"}]
}'

anythink fetch /charts --method POST --body '{
  "name": "Order funnel",
  "chartType": "funnel",
  "entityName": "orders",
  "timeframePreset": "all",
  "funnelStyle": "vertical",
  "funnelStages": [
    {"label":"All orders"},
    {"label":"Paid","filters":[{"field":"status","op":"eq","value":"paid"}]},
    {"label":"Web","filters":[{"field":"channel","op":"eq","value":"web"}]}
  ]
}'

anythink fetch /dashboards --method POST --body '{
  "name": "Sales",
  "widgets": [
    {"type":"chart","title":"Orders by channel","config_json":"{\"chartId\":40}","sort_order":0}
  ]
}'

Share a dashboard and choose the default#

Sharing is set per dashboard, by its owner. There are three levels.

Sharing makes the dashboard visible. The people viewing it still only see the data their role allows.

The project default is the dashboard people see until they have one of their own. Only administrators can change it, in one of two ways: edit it directly, or build a dashboard of your own and promote it, which copies its name, description, layout and widgets over the default.

anythink fetch /dashboards/12 --method PUT --body '{"is_shared": true, "allow_shared_edit": false}'
anythink fetch /dashboards/12/set-home --method POST
anythink fetch /dashboards/12/promote-to-default --method POST

Read chart data from your own app#

Dashboards and charts are part of the project's REST API, so your own app can fetch the numbers a dashboard shows. Use a signed-in user's token or an API key, as for the rest of the API: see API keys and Call the instant REST API. The key's role needs anythink_dashboards:read.

Post the widget ids you want to /dashboards/{id}/data. Leave the list empty to get every widget:

anythink fetch /dashboards/12/data --method POST --body '{"widget_ids": [64]}'

The response is a map from widget id to that widget's data. A chart widget comes back in one of these shapes:

The group or date is in period, and the aggregate in value.

Related endpoints:

Your project's API documentation lists these endpoints with the full request and response fields: see REST API reference.

Limits#

• Charts read live data. There's no schedule or export, and results aren't stored. Large entities with a wide timeframe take longer.
• Row cap. A chart returns up to 5,000 groups by default and at most 100,000.
• Chart types. Bar, line, area, pie, stat, gauge and funnel. There's no table chart: use a list widget.
• Pie charts need a group-by field. Platform-metric pies need a breakdown.
• Aggregates need numbers. sum, avg, min and max work on numeric fields.
• Related fields. Up to three relationships deep, and only on entities you can read.
• Funnel stages. A funnel needs at least one stage. Cohort funnels need a cohort field present on every entity they use.
• Compare. Offered on every chart type except funnels.
• One project default and one Home per person. The default can't be shared, because everyone already sees it.
• No per-role default. The project default is the same for everyone. To point roles at different dashboards, give each role its own menu: see Menu configuration.
• List widgets show between 1 and 50 rows.
• Some tasks are dashboard-only. The CLI and your AI assistant can create dashboards and charts, but adding chart widgets to a dashboard by assistant and arranging widgets by hand are done in the Anythink dashboard.

Next steps#

• Menu configuration: choose what each role sees in the sidebar
• Customise the Anythink dashboard: set your logo and colours
• Roles and permissions: grant anythink_dashboards to a role
• Groups and row-level security: control which records a chart counts
• Model your data: create the entities you chart