How to Create a Simple Dashboard in Displayr

How do you create a simple dashboard that is interactive without using code? This article shows you how to create a simple dashboard in minutes using a worked example in Displayr. You will learn how to import data, create and combine separate charts and visualizations into one dashboard, create and apply filters, and publish online. The resulting dashboard will look like this.

Requirements

A Displayr document
A data set

Method

Step 1: Import data into your dashboard

You will need to be logged in to Displayr and in a Document to import data. There are many different ways of getting data into Displayr. See Get Your Data Into Displayr for an overview. This article works through an example dataset, which you don't have, but you can follow the step-by-step instructions in this post using your own data set (the processes described here can be used with any data set).

Step 2: Set up a background or look and feel (optional)

Get creative and design a background for your dashboard e.g., add a block of color, a photo, or a logo. Having a cohesive and consistent look to your dashboard will make it look professional. Basic customizations can be found in the How to Create a Template Document article, and more customizations can be found in the Work with Pages, Page Masters, and Document Templates section of the Help Center. In our example, we added a background, the file used in this example is saved here. You can follow along with the steps below or review further options in How to Set Up a Background in the Page Master.

To insert the background image:

From the toolbar, click Tools > View Page Master. You will see a list of the different page layouts.
From the Master pane, select the Title Only layout.
From the toolbar, click Image > Browse your computer or the appropriate option.
Make sure the image fills the page by dragging it to size.
You can copy and paste this image to other pages or insert new ones on the other layouts.
Once you have made all the desired changes, from the toolbar, click Exit Page Master .

Step 3: Create and modify a simple table

This next step adds a simple table to your dashboard.

Your new document will automatically have one New Page listed in the Report tree.
Enter the title on your page. In this example, I've used "Market research analysis software ranking". If you wish, you can the font size, style, and color as well in the object Inspector> Appearance tab.
Locate the section in the bottom left of your screen called Data Sources and drag one of the categorical variables, denoted by , onto the page to create a table. In this example, I've used a variable called Software.
If there are any categories in the table that you would like to rename, right-click on the row and select Rename. These changes will be applied whenever that is used again (i.e., they are remembered in the data, rather than being remembered as formatting of the table).
If there are any categories you would like to remove, right-click the row and select Delete. Keep in mind that this will exclude these respondents from the analysis for any outputs using this variable (i.e., they are treated as missing data). Tip: you can select multiple categories at once using ctrl or shift keys.
If there are any categories that you would like to hide from the output, but still include in the NET calculations, right-click on the row and select Hide.
Right-click on the % sign at the top of the table and select Sort > Categories Shown in Rows > By This Column's Values > Descending > %. This sort will also be remembered in the data (i.e., it is applied whenever this data is used again in any other tables).
To move any rows after sorting, hover over the row until you see the three horizontal lines, and slowly drag it to the desired location, releasing your mouse when you see the word Move appear.

Step 4: Creating a crosstab

To turn the above table into a crosstab. In this example, I will cut the Software used variable by geographic Region on a new page:

Right-click on the page in the Report tree and select Copy.
Right-click again in the Report tree and select Paste. This will have copied the entire page including the table.
Slowly drag Region from the Data Sources tree, across on top of the table created in the previous step, dropping it in the Columns slot. You should now have a crosstab.
Update the title at the top of the page to reflect the new table, such as "Market research analysis software by region".

For example, my crosstab now looks like this:

MR software dashboard table.png

Step 5: Create a visualization from an existing table

The quickest approach to creating a visualization is to:

Click on a table (i.e., like the one we have created via drag-and-drop).
From the object inspector, click Visualization . Then select the type of visualization you want to make using the table. In the example shown below, I used Exotic > Bump. Instead of the table, you will now have a visualization in the same place. To see the table again, click on the Table button in the object inspector.
Then, format the chart as you wish using the object inspector. A special feature for the bump chart is available when you click on the inner plot area itself. Click on one of the labels so that the inner plot area is selected, then a new menu will pop up with a Show Values field. Here, I selected Yes-Below.

show values.png

Step 6: Creating a visualization via the visualization menu

In this next step, we introduce a different way of creating a visualization. You can automatically hook up a visualization to an existing table without hiding the table by selecting it and using the toolbar to create the visualization.

In the Report tree, go back to the original page with the single summary table that you created initially. Click the table of just Software to use it to create the visualization.
From the toolbar, select Visualization > Bar > Bar to create a bar chart like below, or whatever visualization you wish.
Click or drag a rectangle on the page to place the visualization.
The visualization will automatically use the table as the object inspector > Data > Data Source.
Drag the table off the page to get it out of the way of your working area.
Right-click on it and select Hide. While it will stay on the screen, it gets grey stripes and will not appear when the document is exported or published as a dashboard. In order to use page filters (created later in the process), you need to keep the table on the same page as the visualization so that the page filters selected are applied to the data in the table (and hence update the visualization accordingly).

Step 7: Creating a custom visualization using R

Many of the visualizations listed in the Visualization selector are created using R code (more about R here). For those of you who need a more custom visualization, you can also create visualizations by writing the R code directly, which is described in this step. In this example, I'm deviating from the other tables and visualizations and using a very simple example. Here, I'm basing it on an income summary table named "table.Income", which you'll see referenced in the R code below:

Under the Report tree, move the cursor to the last page, and click the Plus symbol > Page > Title Only.
Give it a title. In this example, I'm using "Income".
Drag a variable from the Data Sources tree onto the page.
Right-click the "NET" row and select Hide.
Drag the table to be below the page to get it out of the way, and right-click> Hide so that it doesn't appear in the dashboard.
From the toolbar, click Calculation > Custom Code.
Click anywhere on the page to place what will become the visualization.
Paste the code below in the Code Editor.
Change the table.Income bits of the code to the General > General > Name of the table you'd like to use and then click Calculate.

library(bubbles)

#Identify your table
labels <- names(table.Income)
#Format the output
bubbles(value = table.Income,
    label = labels,
    color = "#cee1f2",
    textColor = "#6e3814",
    tooltip = labels)

10. Resize the R Calculation Output until the scrollbars go away. This bubble chart is an open-source package, so it is a bit inflexible (these more novel visualizations are always a bit hard to work with, as they have not been tested and refined like those available in the Displayr menus).

Step 8: Creating filters

To create simple filters that you (or your dashboard viewers) can apply to outputs, you can follow the steps below. These will appear as Page Filters for dashboard viewers to use to filter all outputs on individual pages in the dashboard later on. Note there are other ways to set up filtering in your dashboard outlined in How to Setup Filtering in a Dashboard.

From the Data Sources tree, select a single categorical variable or hold down the ctrl or shift key on your keyboard and click on multiple variables.
Hover and click + > Filter > Filters from Selected Data.

New binary - multi variables will appear in the Data Sources tree. You can now use these variables as filters on your outputs that use variables as the input via Data > Filters & Weight > Filter(s) in the object inspector.

Step 9: Exporting the document as a dashboard

And, finally, you can export your document as a viewable online dashboard to internal and external stakeholders.

From the toolbar, click Share > Publish to web.
Depending on the level of access you would like, select the appropriate access level on the pop-up window. We recommend Anyone with the link or Login and password required. More detailed information about publishing a dashboard can be found in our How to Publish a Document as a Web Page (Dashboard).
Click Publish and then Open in new tab.