Creating a dashboard

Create a dashboard as a new asset from the Assets page for your project.

1. Go to the Assets page by clicking the Assets tab from your project overview page.
2. From the Assets page, click New asset to add a dashboard.
3. From the What do you want to do? page, go to the Analyze data section and click Visualize data in dashboards.
4. From the Visualize data in dashboards page, specify a name for your new dashboard, then click Next.
5. From the Select data source page, select the data assets for your dashboard, then click Select.

   If your data source is not on the Select data source page, either your data source is not supported or the data source is not in the project. Review the supported data sources and add new assets to your project. For more information, see Before you start.

   The dashboard displays a blank canvas that is ready for you to visualize your data. If this is your first time using this dashboard, the dashboard also processes your data sources. The Selected sources section displays the progress of the data sources as a percentage until the processing is complete. Some functions in the dashboard are only available after the processing is complete.

   To work on another canvas, click the Add new tab icon on the canvas.

   To work on another data source, click the Add a source icon and select your data source.

6. Work with charts on the dashboard.

   You can add visualizations to the dashboards in one of the following ways:

   • Have Cognos Dashboards choose the visualization for you.

     Cognos Dashboards provides a number of recommended visualizations based on the data that you are working with.

     To have Cognos Dashboards choose the visualizations for you, drag a measure or column on to the canvas. You can change to another visualization from either Recommended or from More.

   • Choose the visualizations yourself.

     You can customize your dashboard by choosing your own visualizations:

     1. Click the Visualizations icon to display the available charts for your dashboard.
     2. Click the chart to insert it automatically to the canvas. You can also drag the chart and drop it to the canvas.

        After you insert the chart into the canvas, the dashboard automatically selects the Sources icon for you to select the data for your chart.

     3. To move the chart on the canvas, click and drag the corresponding Move widget icon .
     4. From the Sources section, select your data source, then browse to a data column.
     5. Drag the data columns and drop them to an available section of the chart or graph.

        The chart uses the entire set of data from the data column.

     6. To filter the data column values, click the Filters icon , then drag the data column and drop it to the All tabs icon or This tab icon , then specify the filter settings.

        If you have multiple tabs, the filter settings that you specify in All tabs apply to all your tabs.

7. Customize the appearance of the dashboard.
   1. Click the Widgets icon to display the list of available widgets and icons.
   2. Click a widget insert it automatically to the canvas.

      You can also drag the widget and drop it to the canvas.

   3. To move the widget on the canvas, click and drag the corresponding Move widget icon .
8. Click the Save the dashboard icon to save your changes to the dashboard.
   Note: Even if you do not manually save your dashboard, Cognos Dashboards automatically saves any changes that you made every 5 seconds.