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Overview

Knowlix Dashboards provide real-time business intelligence through customizable data visualization. Monitor key metrics, analyze trends, and make data-driven decisions with interactive charts, tables, and reports centralized in dedicated dashboard views. Dashboards connect directly to your operational database through dynamic data sources. Every time you open a dashboard, the system retrieves current data from CRM, Sales, Inventory, HR, Finance, and other modules. Changes to your business data reflect immediately in dashboard visualizations. Spreadsheets form the foundation for dashboards. Insert lists, pivot tables, and charts from any module into spreadsheets, design visualizations with global filters and conditional formatting, then convert the spreadsheet to a published dashboard accessible to your team. Users with appropriate permissions can interact with dashboards through filtering, drill down into underlying records by clicking chart data points or table values, and share frozen snapshots with internal or external stakeholders who lack database access. 💡 Pro Tip: Ask Your Knowlix for dashboard operations: “Show me the sales dashboard” or “Add the inventory aging chart to a new dashboard”

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Standard Pre-Built Dashboards

Knowlix includes ready-to-use dashboards for common business intelligence needs.

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Available Standard Dashboards

Standard dashboards appear automatically based on installed modules: Sales Dashboard: Tracks quotations, confirmed orders, revenue, and average order values. Displays monthly sales trends, top-performing products and salespeople, leading customers, and geographic distribution of sales. Inventory Dashboard: Monitors stock levels, turnover rates, aging inventory, and supplier performance. Visualizes stock movements, warehouse utilization, and reorder point status. CRM Dashboard: Analyzes pipeline health, conversion rates, opportunity values, and sales cycle duration. Shows win/loss ratios, activity completion rates, and lead sources. Finance Dashboard: Presents accounts receivable and payable aging, cash flow projections, profitability metrics, and budget vs. actual comparisons. HR Dashboard: Displays headcount trends, recruitment pipeline status, time-off balances, attendance patterns, and performance review completion rates.

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Interacting with Standard Dashboards

Global filters: Most dashboards include filters at the top for narrowing displayed data:
  • Date Period: Last 7 days, Last 30 days, Last 90 days, This Month, This Quarter, This Year, or custom date ranges
  • Teams: Sales teams, support teams, or project teams depending on dashboard context
  • Products: Specific products, product categories, or product lines
  • Customers: Individual customers, customer segments, or geographic regions
  • Employees: Salespeople, technicians, managers, or departments
Changing filter values refreshes all dashboard elements simultaneously. Drilling down into data: Click any data point in charts or values in tables to view the underlying records. For example, clicking a salesperson’s bar in a revenue chart opens their sales orders. Clicking a product name in a top-selling products table shows that product’s order lines. Accessing source views: Click the title of any chart or table to open the database view from which the data is sourced. This provides deeper analysis capabilities beyond dashboard visualization. Use breadcrumbs to navigate back to the dashboard. 💡 Dashboard Navigation: Use dashboards for high-level overview and trend identification. When you need detailed analysis, drill into the underlying data or source views for full Knowlix reporting capabilities.

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Customizing Standard Dashboards

Important: Standard dashboards reinstall during system upgrades, overwriting any customizations. Always duplicate standard dashboards before customizing them.
To duplicate a standard dashboard:
  1. Navigate to Dashboards → Configuration → Dashboards
  2. Open the dashboard section containing the dashboard
  3. Click Edit on the dashboard line
  4. In the spreadsheet, click File → Make a copy
  5. Rename the duplicate
  6. Navigate back to the section overview
  7. Delete or rename the original if desired
Customizations to the duplicate persist through system upgrades.

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Dashboard Sections and Organization

Dashboards organize into sections in the left panel.

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Managing Dashboard Sections

Creating sections:
  1. Navigate to Dashboards → Configuration → Dashboards
  2. Click New
  3. Enter the section name (e.g., “Executive”, “Operations”, “Team Reports”)
  4. (Optional) Click Add a spreadsheet to create a dashboard in this section immediately
  5. Save
Reordering sections: Use the drag handle icon to move sections up or down in the list. The order affects the left panel display in the main Dashboards view. Duplicating sections:
  1. Select a section name
  2. Click the Actions button
  3. Select Duplicate
Dashboards within the section are NOT duplicated, only the section structure. Deleting sections:
  1. Select a section name
  2. Click Actions
  3. Select Delete
Note: Standard pre-installed sections cannot be deleted. Custom sections can be removed entirely.

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Managing Dashboards within Sections

Click a section to view its dashboards. Available operations: Reordering dashboards: Drag dashboards up or down within the section using the drag handle icon. Editing dashboard properties:
  • Name: Click the dashboard name to edit
  • Access Groups: Add or remove user groups who can view the dashboard
  • Company: (Multi-company databases only) Restrict dashboard visibility to specific companies
  • Published Status: Toggle “Is Published” to show or hide dashboards
Opening for editing: Click the Edit button to open the dashboard’s underlying spreadsheet for customization. Deleting dashboards: Click the trash icon. Standard dashboards automatically reinstall during upgrades, so deletion is temporary for pre-built dashboards. Adding new dashboards to sections: Click Add a spreadsheet and choose:
  • Existing spreadsheet: Convert a spreadsheet from Documents into a dashboard
  • Blank spreadsheet: Start building a dashboard from scratch

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Access Control and Permissions

Dashboard visibility and data access are controlled separately.

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Viewing Dashboard Access

Dashboard visibility: Users see dashboards based on user group membership. Configure which groups can access each dashboard in the dashboard configuration settings. To grant dashboard access to a group:
  1. Navigate to Dashboards → Configuration → Dashboards
  2. Open the relevant section
  3. In the Group column for the dashboard, click the field
  4. Select the user group from the dropdown (click Search More for full list)
  5. Save
To revoke dashboard access: Click the group name, then click the delete icon. Administrator access: Users with “Dashboards / Admin” access rights see all dashboards regardless of group configuration.

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Data Visibility within Dashboards

Even if a user can access a dashboard, they may not see all expected data. Data visibility depends on the user’s access rights to the source database models and any record rules restricting access. Example scenario: A user with “Sales / User: Own Documents Only” permission accesses the Sales dashboard. They see only data related to their own sales, not the full team’s performance. The dashboard displays, but contains limited information. Best practice: When granting dashboard access to user groups, verify that group members have appropriate database access rights to see meaningful data. Granting dashboard access to users who can’t see the underlying data creates misleading incomplete dashboards.

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Sharing Dashboard Snapshots

Share frozen static versions of dashboards with users who lack database access or external stakeholders. To share a dashboard snapshot:
  1. Open the dashboard
  2. Click Share in the top-right corner
  3. Click the copy icon to copy the shareable link
The link provides access to a read-only snapshot with current data values frozen at the time of sharing. Dynamic database connections and filters are disabled in snapshots. 💡 External Sharing: Use snapshots for board presentations, investor reports, or client briefings where recipients need to see data but shouldn’t access the live database.

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Building Custom Dashboards

Create dashboards tailored to specific business needs.

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Dashboard Creation Process

Building dashboards involves three phases: preparation, data integration, and visualization. Phase 1: Preparation Define dashboard objectives:
  • What business questions does this dashboard answer?
  • What metrics indicate success or problems?
  • Who is the audience and what decisions will they make with this data?
  • How often will users consult this dashboard?
Identify data sources:
  • Which modules contain the relevant data?
  • What view types best present this information (lists, pivots, charts)?
  • Are calculations or custom metrics needed?
  • How should data be filtered by default?
Prepare source views:
  • Configure filters to show relevant records only
  • Select appropriate dimensions and measures for pivot tables
  • Choose visible fields for lists
  • Set default time periods
Phase 2: Data Integration Insert data sources into spreadsheets:
  1. Open the relevant view (list, pivot, graph) in its module
  2. Click Actions → Spreadsheet → Insert in spreadsheet (or Insert in Spreadsheet for pivots/graphs)
  3. Choose Blank spreadsheet or select an existing spreadsheet
  4. Confirm insertion
Manipulate data as needed:
  • Use standard spreadsheet functions (SUM, AVERAGE, IF, etc.)
  • Apply database-specific functions to retrieve additional data
  • Convert static pivots to dynamic pivots for in-spreadsheet manipulation
  • Create calculated metrics combining multiple data sources
  • Reference cells across sheets for complex analyses
Phase 3: Visualization and Publishing Design the dashboard layout:
  • Position tables and charts on the first sheet (dashboard front end)
  • Add clear headings and descriptive labels
  • Apply text formatting, colors, and conditional formatting to highlight key metrics
  • Choose appropriate chart types for each data set (bar, line, pie, scatter, etc.)
  • Add clickable links to relevant views or other sheets within the dashboard
Create global filters: Configure filters that apply across all dashboard elements, allowing users to customize their view. Common filter types include date ranges, teams, products, customers, and regions. Convert to dashboard:
  1. Click File → Add to dashboard
  2. Enter the dashboard name
  3. Select the dashboard section (or create a new section)
  4. Set access groups
  5. Click Create
The spreadsheet disappears from Documents and becomes accessible only through the Dashboards module. Multi-page dashboards: Use clickable links to other sheets within the same spreadsheet to create multi-page dashboards. Users navigate between pages via links on the front page. Global filters apply across all pages. 💡 Your Knowlix: “Create a new dashboard showing this quarter’s sales by region”

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Customizing Existing Dashboards

Modify dashboards by editing their underlying spreadsheets.

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Opening Dashboard Spreadsheets

To access a dashboard’s spreadsheet:
  1. Navigate to Dashboards → Configuration → Dashboards
  2. Open the relevant section
  3. Click Edit on the dashboard line
The spreadsheet opens with at least two sheets:
  • Sheet 1: Front end of the dashboard (what users see)
  • Sheet 2+: Data tables, calculation sheets, or additional dashboard pages
Temporarily unpublishing: Before making major changes, disable “Is Published” to prevent users from seeing the dashboard during editing. Re-enable when customization is complete. Read-only access: Users without admin rights can open dashboard spreadsheets in read-only mode to understand data sources and calculations without editing capability.

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Adding Elements

New visualizations from existing data: Create additional charts or tables using data already in the spreadsheet. Existing data sources continue updating automatically. New data sources: Insert additional lists, pivots, or charts from other modules:
  1. Open the relevant view in its source module
  2. Insert into the dashboard’s spreadsheet (select Dashboards tab in the insert dialog)
  3. Confirm insertion
  4. The data appears in a new sheet (lists/pivots) or on the first sheet (charts)
Global filters: Add new filters or modify existing filters in the Data menu of the spreadsheet. Configure which data sources respond to each filter. Clickable links: Add navigation links to cells or charts, pointing to menus, URLs, or other sheets within the dashboard.

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Removing Elements

Delete unnecessary tables, charts, or filters from the spreadsheet. Important: After deleting dashboard elements, check the Data menu for warning icons indicating orphaned data sources (data sources no longer used by any spreadsheet element). Delete orphaned data sources to improve performance.

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My Dashboard - Personal View Consolidation

My Dashboard provides a personalized view collecting your most-used views from across all modules.

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Adding Views to My Dashboard

Most view types can be added: lists, kanban, maps, calendars, cohorts, gantt, pivots, and graphs. To add a view:
  1. Open the desired view in any module
  2. Click the Actions icon next to the view name
  3. Select Dashboard
  4. Under “Add to my Dashboard,” rename if desired
  5. Click Add
  6. Refresh the page
The view appears as a widget in My Dashboard within the Dashboards module. Dynamic functionality: Views in My Dashboard remain fully interactive:
  • Sort lists by clicking column headers
  • Change pivot dimensions and measures
  • Switch chart types in graph views
  • Click values to access underlying records
Limitation: Filtering and grouping (domain) cannot be changed within My Dashboard. To modify filters, change them in the source view, then re-add the view to My Dashboard and delete the old version.

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Customizing My Dashboard Layout

Layout options: Click Change Layout in the top-right corner to select single-column, two-column, or three-column layouts. Multi-column layouts show column boundaries at the bottom of the page. Widget management:
  • Collapse widgets: Click the minimize icon to show only the widget title
  • Expand widgets: Click the maximize icon to show full widget content
  • Move widgets: Drag and drop widgets to reposition within or between columns
  • Remove widgets: Click the remove icon to delete from My Dashboard
💡 Use Case: A sales manager adds to My Dashboard: today’s overdue opportunities (list), this month’s pipeline (pivot), and this quarter’s revenue trend (graph). One-click access to critical metrics without navigating through multiple modules.

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Best Practices

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Duplicate Before Customizing Standard Dashboards

Never edit standard dashboards directly. System upgrades reinstall them, destroying your customizations. Always create duplicates first.

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Grant Appropriate Data Access with Dashboard Access

Verify that user groups granted dashboard access have permissions to see the underlying data. A sales team dashboard is useless if users can’t access sales data.

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Use Clear, Descriptive Headings

Dashboard users should understand what each chart or table represents without explanations. Use complete descriptive titles, not abbreviations or internal jargon.

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Configure Sensible Default Filters

Set global filter defaults to the most commonly used values. “Last 90 Days” works well for most dashboards. Users can adjust as needed.

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Limit Dashboard Complexity

Don’t cram too many metrics onto one dashboard page. 4-6 key visualizations per page maintain readability. Create multi-page dashboards for comprehensive topics.

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Test Dashboard Performance

After adding multiple data sources, test dashboard load times. Too many large data sources slow performance. Consider filtering source data more aggressively or splitting into multiple dashboards.

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Use Appropriate Chart Types

Bar charts compare categories, line charts show trends over time, pie charts display proportions, and scatter plots reveal correlations. Choose chart types that match the insight you’re communicating.

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Apply Conditional Formatting for Quick Identification

Use color coding to highlight values above or below thresholds. Red for below target, green for above target, yellow for approaching limits. Visual cues accelerate interpretation.

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Document Complex Calculations

Add comments or text fields explaining calculated metrics, especially those combining multiple data sources. Future editors (or your future self) need to understand the logic.

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Refresh My Dashboard Regularly

Remove widgets from My Dashboard when they’re no longer relevant. Keep only actively used views to maintain a clean, focused personal dashboard.

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Share Snapshots for External Reporting

Use snapshot sharing for external stakeholders, board reports, and presentations. Don’t grant full database access when static reports suffice.

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Schedule Regular Dashboard Reviews

Review dashboards quarterly to ensure they still answer relevant business questions. Business priorities change, and dashboards should evolve accordingly.

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Need Help?

Ask Your Knowlix:
  • “Show me the sales dashboard”
  • “Add this pivot table to a new executive dashboard”
  • “Create a dashboard showing inventory levels by warehouse”
  • “Duplicate the finance dashboard for Q4 analysis”
  • “Add the opportunities pipeline view to My Dashboard”
  • “Share a snapshot of the revenue dashboard”
Contact Support: For questions about dashboard performance optimization, complex calculated metrics, global filter configuration, or multi-page dashboard design, contact Knowlix support through the Help menu.