How to Create and Use Dashboards in MSPbots

You can create dashboards with specific, real-time data to highlight action items and metrics that help achieve and measure business goals. Once created, you can stream your dashboard on a screen, use the snapshot function, and send the data as a report based on a schedule. 

MSPbots dashboards can be presented and streamed on devices. Creating printable reports in PDF format is done following the guide in How to Create and Use Reports in MSPbots. 

What are MSPbots dashboards? 

The MSPbots dashboards are centralized and visual representations of your company's real-time metrics, data, and performance indicators, allowing managers and stakeholders to gain insights, make informed decisions, and take appropriate actions. These dashboards have widgets for quick views of actionable data and filters for interactively selecting and viewing specific subsets of data based on predefined criteria or parameters. You can start creating these dashboards with one of the available templates or creating your dashboards for your specific business needs.

Why should I create a dashboard? 

Creating dashboards helps in the analysis, communications, and monitoring of data that aid in decision-making and reaching targets across different areas of your business. 

Service Delivery - Dashboards help track response times, service availability, and customer satisfaction allowing service teams to identify bottlenecks, address issues promptly, and ensure service level agreements are met.

Support Service - Dashboards display real-time incident data, response times, and customer feedback to help support teams identify and prioritize critical issues, prioritize tickets, effectively manage resources, and address recurring issues. 

Leadership  - Dashboards facilitate data-driven decision-making, performance evaluation, and organizational strategies. 

Project Management - Dashboards are essential in tracking and communicating project progress, milestones, and deliverables. These also help identify potential risks, allocate resources, and ensure projects are on schedule.

Remote Management and Security Monitoring - Dashboards give real-time visibility of the overall health of your IT assets and ensure systems remain compliant with security policies, vulnerabilities are mitigated, and automated tasks are done without issues. These also help in security management, like threat detection and response, data policy, access control and authentication, and security incident response. 

Peer Groups - Dashboards are helpful in trend analysis, benchmarking, goal tracking, and knowledge-sharing.

Relevant applications and permissions 

You can set up dashboards for all MSPbots apps, BI packages, and applicable integrations. Only users with admin permissions can create dashboards and reports. If you don't have enough permissions, contact your administrator for help. 

How to create a dashboard

Do the following to create your dashboard: 

1. Open the MSPbots app as administrator.
2. Navigate to Dashboards on the menu and click the New Dashboard button. 
   
   
   
   
3. In the Dashboard window, select Dashboard. 
   
   
   
   
4. When the Add New Dashboard window opens, do the following:
   1. Enter your dashboard's name in the Name field. 
   2. Click the Role dropdown menu and select the roles that will access the dashboard. 
   3. Click the Tag dropdown menu and select one or multiple tags to label your new dashboard.
   4. Next, provide a Description for your dashboard.
   5. Click Continue. This opens the tab for your new dashboard. 
      
      
      
      
5. Click the Add Widgets button. 
   
   
   
   
6. When the Add Widget window appears, click Widgets List. 
   • If you want to add a slicer to the dashboard, refer to How to Add a Slicer to the Dashboard.
     
     
     
     
7. Select the widgets to show in your dashboard and click the Add Selected button. The widgets you selected should appear in the dashboard you have just created. 
   
   Do not select more than 218 widgets; exceeding the limit of 218 can lead to slow loading times and occasional crashes.
   
   
   
   
8. Click the Save Dashboard button when done. 
    
   
          _{*The asset in the image is for demonstration only.}
   
   
   • If the Too many widgets popup appears after clicking the Save Dashboard button, go back to Step 5 to uncheck some widgets to reduce the number of Selected widgets to 218 in order to stay within the limit of 218.
     
     
     
     
   • If you do not want to save this dashboard, click Cancel.
     
     

How to configure the widgets in a dashboard

Do the following steps to add, edit, remove, or move the widgets in your dashboard: 

Adding more widgets to the dashboard

1. Open the dashboard you want to configure and click the Design button. 
   
   
   ^{*The asset in the image is for demonstration only.} 
   
   
2. When the Clone window opens, review the details, and click Continue to open your dashboard. 
   
   
    
   

   You must clone dashboards and widgets before editing and customizing these assets. 
   
   

3. Click the Add Widget button. 
4. Go to the Widgets List. 
5. Select the widgets and click Add Selected. 
   
   Do not select more than 218 widgets; exceeding the limit of 218 can lead to slow loading times and occasional crashes.
   
   
   
   
6. Click Save Dashboard to save the settings. If you do not want to save the change, click Cancel. 
   
   
   
   

    

   • If the Too many widgets popup appears after clicking the Save Dashboard button, go back to Step 5 to uncheck some widgets to reduce the number of Selected widgets to 218 in order to stay within the limit of 218.
     
     
     
     

Moving widgets in the dashboard 

1. Open the dashboard you want to configure and click the Design button. 
2. Hover the cursor over a widget to show the Move, Edit, and Delete icons. 
   
   
   
   
3. Click and drag the widget to another area in the dashboard. 
4. You can also hover the mouse over and select Move to Top, Move Up, Move Down, or Move to Bottom.
   

   • Move to Top - This option moves the widget to the top of the dashboard. 

   • Move Up - This option shifts the widget one level higher than its current placement.

   • Move Down - This option shifts the widget one level lower than its current placement.
   • Move to Bottom - This option moves the widget to the bottom of the dashboard. 
     
     
     
     
5. Click Save Dashboard to save the settings. If you do not want to save the change, click Cancel. 
   
   
   
   

Editing a widget in the dashboard

1. Open the dashboard you want to configure and click the Design button. 
2. Hover over a widget to show the Move, Edit, and Delete icons. 
   
   
   
   
3. Click the Edit icon. 
   
   
   
   
4. Edit the widget settings in the Widget Builder.
5. Click Apply > Close when done editing.
6. When back in your dashboard's window, click Save Dashboard to save the settings. 
   
   
   
   

Removing a widget from the dashboard

1. Open the dashboard you want to configure and click the Design button. 
2. Click the Remove icon and Confirm. 
   
   
    
   
3. When back in your dashboard's window, click Save Dashboard. 
   
   

Other options in widgets

1. Hover the cursor over the ellipsis ... button and select Edit, Filter, Refresh, Copy URL, Clone to, or Full screen. 
   • Edit - Edits the widget 
   • Filter - Adds filtering conditions to the widget 
   • Refresh - Refreshes the data on the widget 
   • Copy URL - Copies the URL address of the widget 
   • Clone to - Clones the widget and has options to Clone to "My widgets", Clone to existing dashboards, and Clone to new dashboard.
   • Full screen - Displays the widget in full screen
     
     
     
     
2. After you have finished configuring, click Save Dashboard to save the settings. 
   
   
   
   

What other actions can I do in the dashboard? 

You can also do the following configurations from the dashboard: 

• Edit the dashboard's basic information - Click the Edit icon to edit the basic information of the dashboard. 
  
  
  
  
• Adjust the widget size - Click and the Confirm button to fit the widget size to match the page height.
  
  
  
  

• Refresh all widgets in the dashboard

  • Click to refresh all widgets in the dashboard.

  • Hover over the icon to open the auto-refresh settings popup.
    
    
    
    

    • Automatic refresh is disabled by default.
    • Click on Enable automatic refresh to start automatic refresh and set your preferred refresh interval.

    • Once set, the dashboard will automatically refresh according to your chosen interval.

    • This setting is applied when presenting a single dashboard or rotating multiple dashboards in Presentation mode, streaming dashboards to TV, sharing the dashboard with others, and opening dashboards in the Client Portal.

    • The dashboards will continue to apply the refresh settings even when the tabs are minimized. 
       
      
      
      

• Clone the dashboard - Click the Clone icon to clone the dashboard. For detailed instructions, refer to How to Clone a Dashboard.
  
  
  
  
• Share your dashboard - Click the Share icon to share the dashboard. 
  
  
  
  This feature supports sharing through a shareable link, Embed, and Stream to TV. Refer to the following links for more information：
  • • How to Share a Dashboard Using the Shareable Link Function
    • How to Share A Dashboard Using the Embed Function (HTML)
    • Sharing Dashboards Using the Stream to TV Function
      
      
• Delete your dashboard - Click the Remove icon to delete the dashboard. 
  
  
  
  
• Create Scheduled Report - Click  to configure dashboards or reports to be sent as scheduled reports to email recipients according to a predefined schedule.
  For detailed design instructions, you can go to the section on How to Create Scheduled Reporting for Dashboards and Reports.  
  
• Display your dashboard - Click the Presentation icon and select any of the following options for presenting your dashboard: 
  • Single Dashboard  
  • Rotate Dashboard - Refer to Presenting Dashboards Using the Rotating Dashboard View for more information. 
  • Stream to TV - Refer to Sharing Dashboards Using the Stream to TV Function for more information.