Adding KPI Widgets to Dashboards

Overview

Please refer to the dashboard overview article to understand more about creating dashboards in general. 

KPI Widgets are components that can be added to a dashboard to show a quick metric or number. They are intended to show you point in time stats about your metrics rather than large trends, and are best suited for highlighting important numbers that should be quickly visible to a dashboard viewer. 

Adding KPI Widgets

Spiro Reports offers a widget-based model for creating single number charts (headline charts) 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.

Adding a Widget

You add a new KPI widget by clicking the Add Widget option in the toolbar. The Widget Editor will open.

The Data Tab

The Data tab provides options to add primary key performance indicator and the secondary values to support it.

  1. The Data tab of the Widget Editor provides options to choose the type of widget and the associated columns.
  2. Choose the widget type under Select Layout. You will find six templates.
    You can also view each template with sample data to make a better choice by clicking the Show Sample link that appears on mouse over.

  3. Select the columns required for your calculation in the Select Column section. Spiro Reports will return a single value based on the columns and function selected in this section. 
    1. In the Data Column drop-down select the data column that you want to display in the widget along with the calculation function to apply over it.
    2. In the Group By drop-down select the column by which the above mentioned data column value should be grouped.
  4. Based on the type of layout that you choose, you might have to provide additional information to create the widget. This is to be provided in the Show Value As section.
    1. The Primary Value drop-down allows you to apply a summary function over the data column dropped.
    2. The Secondary Value allows you to specify an additional column along with a calculation function applied, that will be displayed along with the Primary value (primary metric).

For instance, if your primary metric is total sales, you can also choose to display the maximum and minimum sales values alongside the main value by selecting the appropriate template. Upto two secondary values could be displayed along with the primary value based on the template you choose.