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Dashboards

The

Dashboard
page offers charts and dashboard visualizations based on data stored within Ganymede.

Ganymede Dashboard

 

To assemble a dashboard:

Adding a Dataset​

Datasets must be added from the environment prior to charting, either chosen from the environment (Physical Datasets) or created via an ANSI SQL query (Virtual Datasets) based prior to charting.

Adding Physical Datasets​

Physical datasets are tables outputted from flows. To add a physical dataset:

  • Click on the Datasets button in the top bar:
Dashboard - Select Dataset
  • Select a database, schema, and table to add and click
    CREATE DATASET AND CREATE CHART
    .
Dashboard - Add Physical Dataset

Adding Virtual Datasets​

Virtual datasets for the dashboard environment are constructed by querying existing tables.

  • Hover over SQL in the top menu bar and click on SQL Lab. This should bring you to a SQL editor that lets you preview tables, and results of SQL queries:
Dashboard - SQL Editor
  • Fill in the SQL Editor with a query string, select an appropriate number of rows to observe, and click
    RUN
    to execute SQL.
Dashboard - SQL Editor Query
  • Save a virtual dataset by clicking on the
    next to the
    SAVE
    button, and clicking on
    Save Dataset
    .
Dashboard - Add Virtual Dataset

For a list of available functions and syntax guidance, please reference the SQL in BigQuery documentation.

Saving queries

The

SAVE
button saves SQL queries for future edits, but does not register a query as a virtual dataset.

Creating a chart​

Charts can be created from physical or virtual datasets.

To create a chart:

  • Hover over Data in the top menu bar and click on Datasets. Then, click on one of the listed datasets, which should bring up the following pane:
Dashboard - Create Chart

The DATA tab has controls for specifying chart type and pivoting/aggregating data from the selected table. The customize tab has functionality for annotating axis labels, specifying axis format, and chart title.

Saving charts to dashboards​

  • Once the created chart looks satisfactory, add a chart to a dashboard by clicking on SAVE in the upper-right hand corner of the screen to bring up this modal:
Dashboard - Save Chart

Calculated columns​

Calculated columns can be added to the dataset, which can be handy for correcting data for visualization. Some example use cases are:

  • Taking the floor or ceiling of a variable to truncate data outside of a desired range
  • Performing string manipulations on a field to categorize or subset data
  • Extracting values from a string for aggregation

To create a calculated column:

  • Hover over the three dots to the right of the dataset on the Chart Creation page and click Edit Dataset.
Dashboard - Edit Dataset
  • Select the Calculated Columns tab to add new columns to the dataset. Specify the field definition using a SQL expression.
Calculated Column flexibility

Calculated columns are more flexible than what is found in other BI tools offering similar functionality. Beyond aggregation, these fields can be filtered on, sorted by, and/or used to categorize data.

Dashboard - Calculated Column
Permissions for editing datasets

Dashboards can only be edited by their owner. One method for multiple users to avoid conflicting dataset modifications would be for users of shared datasets to create virtual datasets for their own use.

Editing dashboards​

To edit a dashboard, select Dashboards from the top menu bar and navigate to the desired dashboard. Clicking on

EDIT DASHBOARD
allows users to resize and rearrange the layout of different charts.

Data backing the graphs can be filtered by clicking on the icon on the left side of the dashboard, selecting

Add filters and dividers
and selecting the SCOPING panel.

Tables referenced by dashboard filter

The SCOPING tab on the filters modal allows users to specify which graphs the filter applies to. Note that if 2 charts are backed by different datasets which share a field name, a single filter can be used to manipulate both tables simultaneously.

Tips and tricks​

Dashboard chart shows an error message that the dataset is missing but it does exist and linked to the chart​

If the chart was properly displayed in the the Edit Chart page but it throws this error in the dashboard then this could happen when you have two charts named the same where one has a missing dataset. The dashboard could pull in the chart that has the missing dataset. You can fix this by renaming the chart to be unique or delete the chart with the missing dataset.

How do you create bar plots with proportions and percentages?​

In the chart editor page

  1. Click the + Drop columns/metrics here or click in the metrics section of the query.
  2. Move to the CUSTOM SQL tab
  3. Enter the following formula in the editor space
COUNTIF(my_column = 'my_value') / COUNT(*)

More general proportions can be found with

COUNT(*) / SUM(COUNT(*)) OVER (PARTITION BY x_axis_variable)

I added a new column but I do not see it in the columns side bar in the editor chart page.​

In the chart editor page

  1. Click the ⋮ in the Chart Source side bar
  2. Click editor Edit dataset
  3. Click the COLUMNS tab
  4. Click SYNC COLUMNS FROM SOURCE
  5. Save

I do not see the full range of values on the x-axis of my line plot​

This could be due to there being to many digits in the data being displayed, which can be fixed by rounding the data.

  1. Click the column of interest in X-AXIS Query section
  2. Click the CUSTOM SQL tab
  3. Modify the sql command to be
ROUND(my_column, 2)
  1. Update chart

I am creating a line chart but the line is patchy and not full connected​

If the spacing between adjacent data points is too large, superset will have trouble connecting the points together. You can fill in the data in the chart editor page

  1. Expand the Advanced analytics section in the DATA tab
  2. Select an option in the RULE such as 1 hourly frequency
  3. Select the FILL METHOD such as Linear interpolation
  4. Update chart

Another approach might be to increase the ROW LIMIT in the DATA tab if you have a large dataset.

I am creating a line chart but there are regions of the plot with missing data​

Sometimes the superset will have trouble displaying any data in certain regions of the line chart. You can confirm that the plot recognizes that point by hovering the mouse in those regions to see if a hover box displays with the values. If the data is not time-series, you can try turning on marker in the Chart Options of the Customize tab. This will at least allow you to see the data points in the plot.

Including headers, text, dividers, and tabs to dashboard​

  1. In the dashboard page, click EDIT DASHBOARD
  2. On the right side of the page, click the LAYOUT ELEMENTS tab
  3. Drag and drop tabs, text boxes, headers, etc

These can be used to add descriptions to your dashboard. The text boxes and headers are markdown editors which can include hyperlinks that can point to flow pages or other dashboards. The tabs allow you to separate out charts into different tabs to group relevant charts together. Filters can be configured to work with different tabs. Filters that are not relevant to the specific tab you are on will be hidden under a dropdown and classified as out of scope. Tabs act as their own mini dashboards with unique links that will point to that tab in the dashboard.

I am creating a line chart with time series but getting a 404 Post Error... Braced constructors are not supported​

This could mean that superset is having trouble recognizing your time series variable as a time stamp or datetime variable. You can try creating a calculated variable in the Edit dataset from Chart Source and do

CAST(my_time_variable AS TIMESTAMP)

Then set the variable type to DATETIME in the DATA TYPE section.

Creating more meaningful labels for table chart types​

Variables are saved with to the database with spaces and special characters replaced with underscores. However, you can change the label shown in tables with something more meaningful such as adding spaces, units, etc in the Edit dataset from Chart Source. In the Columns tab, click the dropdown for the variable you want to add a label to and fill in the LABEL field. For an example, if your variable is my_variable you can set the label to be My Variable (units) and this would automically set the column name in your table chart types to this new label.