# How dashboards work

What a dashboard holds, its kinds and states, who sees it, how its figures are computed, where the ready-made dashboards and the KPI bars come from, and what Analysis does not do.

**Analysis** reads the records the other apps already keep: it stores no figure of its own. A dashboard is a set of instructions, which records to count or add up and how to draw them, and the figures appear each time someone opens it.

## What a dashboard holds {#what-a-dashboard-holds}

- a name, an icon and an owner;
- a **Kind** and a state, which decide who sees it;
- its widgets, each reading one kind of record, with its place on the board;
- its access lines, its share links, and optionally a group and an entry in the menu of an app.

## Kinds and states {#kinds-and-states}

| Kind | Meaning |
|---|---|
| **Personal** | Yours. Viewer lines do not open it; besides you, only its editors and the managers see it |
| **Shared** | For the people, groups and teams named on its **Access** tab |
| **Team** | For the members of one team; the team's managers may change it |
| **Template** | A model kept for copying; seen by its owner, its editors and the managers |

A dashboard is **Draft** while it is being built, **Published** when viewers may see it, and **Archived** when it leaves the lists and menus; **Set to Draft** brings an archived one back.

## Who sees a dashboard {#who-sees-what}

Four routes open a dashboard to someone: being its owner; being an **Editor** on one of its access lines, or a manager of its team, in any state; being a **Viewer** on a line, or a member of its team, once it is **Published** and its kind is **Shared** or **Team**; or holding the **Manager** right. The list at the top of the board shows exactly these dashboards. [Share a dashboard](share-a-dashboard) sets the lines, and [Analysis settings](analysis-settings#access-rights) lists the rights.

## Live figures {#live-figures}

The figures are computed when the dashboard opens, when you click the refresh button, and every few minutes when the form sets an **Auto-refresh (min)**. They are computed as the person who looks: the record rules and the companies of that person apply, so a lawyer and a manager can read different numbers on the same dashboard. A widget over records someone may not read says "You are not allowed to see this data", and a widget with a wrong setting shows its error; the other widgets of the board still show. A chart lists at most the **Max groups** of its widget, 100 at most, and marks a cut list with an icon.

The **Date Filter** adds a period to every widget that has a date to apply it to: [Organize and filter dashboards](organize-and-filter-dashboards#date-filter).

## Ready-made dashboards {#ready-made}

Each app listed in [Ready-made dashboards](ready-made-dashboards) comes with a small companion that holds its dashboard. It installs by itself once both the app and **Analysis** are installed, and creates one dashboard, about twenty widgets and, for most apps, a KPI bar. The dashboard belongs to the administrator, is **Shared** and **Published**, and its only access line gives **Viewer** to the group **Analysis / Viewer**: everyone with the **Viewer** right sees it. Updates of the app leave the changes you make to it in place.

![A ready-made dashboard is shared with every holder of the Viewer right of Analysis.](https://jaah.app/web/image/13122-80af03b7/analysis-how-dashboards-work-ready_made_access-en.png)

## The KPI bar {#kpi-bar}

A small KPI or Single Value tied to a menu shows as a tile above the lists and kanbans of that menu, as on **My Activities**. When the tile reads the same records as the list, it follows the search of the list, and clicking a tile that has a rule of its own adds that rule to the search. The button next to the view switchers hides or shows the bar, and the browser remembers the choice. The bar shows to those who may read its dashboard. [Build a dashboard](build-a-dashboard#kpi-bar) ties a tile to a menu.

![The KPI bar of the Activities app, above the list, with the button that hides it.](https://jaah.app/web/image/13118-10b166fd/analysis-how-dashboards-work-kpi_bar-en.png)

## Layouts {#layouts}

The place of each widget is stored with the dashboard. On a **Shared** or **Team** dashboard, someone who may change it and moves a tile changes their own view only; the others keep the shared arrangement. Adding, changing or removing a widget changes the dashboard for everyone. Opening a dashboard in a narrow window, such as on a phone, also saves the arrangement, with the wide tiles reduced to a third of the width: as a personal view on a **Shared** or **Team** dashboard, which the undo button of edit mode resets for those who may change the dashboard (a viewer has no edit mode and keeps it), and as the dashboard's own arrangement on a **Personal** one.

## What Analysis does not do {#limits}

- It keeps no history of its figures: a dashboard shows today's records. To keep a figure of a given day, export it ([Import and export a dashboard](import-and-export-a-dashboard)).
- It sends no dashboard by email on a schedule.
- It offers no control on the board for the named filters of the **Filters** tab, and the **Color Scheme** of the form does not change the board: colors come from each widget's **Display** tab.
- It does not show groups in the list at the top of the board.
- An outside link shows the figures that the person who generated it may read, not those of the visitor.

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- Source: https://jaah.app/docs/analysis/how-dashboards-work
- Updated: 2026-10-27
- Version: Analysis 19.0.1.6.2
- Verified: 2026-10-27