Creating your first dashboard
Once a dashboard is set up and configured for your data, it runs indefinitely with little to no maintenance. Creating your own dashboards from scratch is a simple, five step process:
- Create and name a new dashboard
- Select a widget to add to your dashboard
- Connect that widget to the desired tag or tags
- Customize how the widget displays data
- Share your dashboard with a group
Create and name a new dashboard
When naming a dashboard, it is critical to know that separating text with a period (.) will automatically create a folder and organize the dashboard inside it. For example, entering the name “Company.Machine1” will create a folder named “Company” that contains a dashboard named “Machine 1”. See this in action by following the steps below:
- Create a dashboard: Open the left-hand drawer and click the ‘Create new dashboard’ button to create a blank, ‘Unnamed Dashboard’.
- Start editing the name: Click on ‘Unnamed Dashboard’ in the upper right to begin editing. You will see a cursor appear.
- Enter a new name: For this demonstration, enter ‘Company.Tutorials.MyBoard’
- Check the navigation menu: Open the navigation menu again to see the automatically organized folder structure.
Note: We strongly recommend using this dot notation technique to group your dashboards into factories, teams, or machine lines as early as possible. Even if you only have a few dashboards, using dot notation ensures that your system of dashboards stays organized as your number of internal users, machines monitored, or customers you serve grow.
Add a widget
To determine which widget to add to a dashboard, it can be helpful to work backwards from your end goal. Here’s a quick example of how data from a single installed sensor might be applied in three distinct ways, by selecting different widgets:
| I need to know… | Such as… | I can use a… |
| The status of a device right now | “Is this machine currently on, off, or idling?” | Single datapoint widget that shows the latest value from a power current sensor. |
| Patterns in a device’s status over time | “When was this machine on or off this week?” | Time series widget that shows all measurements of current over the 7 days. |
| Insights on a machine’s behavior | “How many 2x4s did this machine cut this week?” | Analytics widget that counts the number of times the current crossed above a 20 amp threshold this week. |
We recommend adding simple widgets to a dashboard first in order to confirm that all sensors are installed and calibrated correctly. Add a datapoint widget following the steps below:
- Enable editing: In your tutorial dashboard, ensure that the lock icon (
) in the upper right is unlocked. - Add a widget: Open the Add New Widget menu (
), select the ‘Datapoint’ widget, and click finish. - Resize and reposition: Click the bottom right corner of the widget, and drag it out and down to make it larger. Click the orange header bar to position it left or right on the page.
As you hover over the orange bar, notice that additional controls become available in the upper right corner as shown below.
- Configure Widget Indicators (
): Click the bell icon to access controls that allow you to adjust the appearance of data displayed in this widget. Display options vary depending on widget type, but generally involve using the incoming data to determine the color of numbers or icons, or to display text. For example, when power equals zero, you might display the text “OFFLINE” instead of a number. - Configure Widget (
): Click the gear icon to access controls that allow you to determine which tag or tags this widget should display, and how the data should be handled. Data handling options vary depending on widget type, but generally involve selecting how much data to show at once, or scaling up small units in order to compare data in millivolts to data in volts. - Widget Actions (
): Click the three dots to open a menu in which you can rename your widget, delete it from your dashboard, or export the currently displayed data to a CSV file. Renaming changes the text shown in the widget’s orange header.
Connect a widget to a data source
Use the Configure Widget panel () to create a connection between tags sent from a physical stack and this widget, and start data flowing to your dashboard. Please follow the steps below:
- Open the Configure Widget panel: Hover over your widget, and click the gear icon to open the configuration panel.
- Select a stack to connect to: Click on the ‘Stack’ dropdown menu to see a list of all stacks that you have access to, and select the one connected to the device you want to view.
- Select a tag to view: Click the ‘Attribute’ dropdown to see a list of all tags available from the stack you’ve selected. Choose the attribute related to the sensor you’d like to connect to.
- Proceed to the next section: Click “next” to view the data handling options for this widget type. A detailed explanation of the Datapoint Widget and it’s properties is available here. Other widgets will have different options.
- Apply your changes: Click the ‘Finish’ button to return to your dashboard.
The header of this widget should now display the tag being monitored (Temperature, in the example above) and the latest reading from your device should display in the widget.
Customize how a widget displays data
Use the Configure Widget Indicators panel () to change the way data is displayed within a widget based on certain conditions, such as when it exceeds a threshold value or is within a specified range. Using multiple sets of criteria, you can create widgets that are highly responsive to changes in your data and ensure that the most important information stands out. The interface is explained below:
- Tag: Select a tag to customize. Some widgets can display multiple tags at once.
- Condition: Set the logic to be evaluated against the Trigger Value: Equals, Greater Than, Greater Than or Equals, Less Than, Less Than or Equals.
- Trigger Value: Set the threshold data value that your condition will evaluate against.
- Color: Change the color of the displayed number, text, or icon.
- Display Icon: Replace the display of data with an icon. Icons can be shown simultaneously with Display Text.
- Display Text: Replace the display of data with text. Text can be shown simultaneously with a Display Icon.
- Background Color: Fill the background color of the widget with a solid color.
Follow the steps below to configure a single datapoint widget to render in red text when the current value is above 70. If you already have a sensor up and running, you can adjust the condition and trigger value according to your incoming data.
- Open the Configure Widget Indicators panel: Hover over your widget and click the bell icon to open the configuration panel.
- Select ‘Custom’: Select the ‘Custom’ option to expose the full range of options for this widget.
- Select a tag to modify: Select an option from the ‘Tag’ dropdown. The content of this dropdown is determined by the stack(s) you selected when configuring this widget’s data source.
- Select a condition and trigger value: Since this example is using temperature, set Condition to ‘Greater Than’ and Trigger Value to ‘70’. When the sensor reports a value higher than 70, all display settings to the right will be applied.
- Set your preferred appearance: Set color to red.
- Apply your settings: Click ‘Save’ to apply your settings, and return to the dashboard to see the visual effect.
You can reopen the configuration panel with the bell icon and click the plus button to the right of the interface to add an additional row. This will allow you to create as many conditions as you like, enabling you to create data displays for your devices that are responsive to changing conditions, and visually elevate the most important information.
Example 1:
Measure the power consumption of CNC milling machines to determine which are currently off, on, idle, or in active use. Set custom text to create an at-a-glance summary of machine status without needing to interpret wattage.
Example 2:
Create a grid of small datapoint widgets to scan temperatures in a bank of turbines. Set white text on a red background to instantly notice any overheating units.
Share a dashboard
MyStacks dashboards are visible only to you until shared with a group. If your account was set up with the help of an Interstacks support engineer, you will likely already be a member of at least one group. To share the dashboard you are currently viewing, open the Share menu () in the upper right corner of the dashboard and click the ‘Share this Dashboard’ item.
- Set Default: Flags this dashboard as your default. MyStacks will bring you directly to the currently viewed dashboard each time you log in until a different default dashboard is selected.
- Rename Dashboard: Places an active cursor in the current dashboard’s title, allowing you to edit it.
- Duplicate Dashboard: Creates a copy of the currently viewed dashboard and opens it in your browser window.
- Share as Template: Opens a field to enter another MyStacks users’ email address. This user will be emailed a link, which they can use to create a duplicate of your current dashboard.
- Share this Dashboard: Opens a window showing each group of which you are a member. Select the groups you wish to share with, and click ‘Save’ to make this dashboard accessible to all users in that group.
- Delete this Dashboard: Remove yourself as a member of this dashboard, removing it from your navigation menu. If this dashboard has been shared to a group, other group members will still be able to see and access it.
After sharing a dashboard with a group, the lock icon () in the upper right corner of the dashboard will visually change to indicate that this board is now shared among a group (