Tutorial | Use dashboards to build reports#

Get started#

In this tutorial, let’s build a dashboard to communicate key insights from your project.

Objectives#

In this tutorial, you will:

  • Publish insights to a dashboard.

  • Design a dashboard page.

  • Export a dashboard to a PDF.

Prerequisites#

To complete this tutorial, you’ll need the following:

  • A Dataiku instance (version 12.0 and above).

Create the project#

To create the project:

  1. From the Dataiku Design homepage, click + New Project > DSS tutorials > Core Designer > Build Reports with Dashboards.

  2. From the project homepage, click Go to Flow (or g + f).

Note

You can also download the starter project from this website and import it as a zip file.

You’ll next want to build the Flow.

  1. Click Flow Actions at the bottom right of the Flow.

  2. Click Build all.

  3. Keep the default settings and click Build.

Use case summary#

Let’s say we’re a financial company that uses some credit card data to detect fraudulent transactions.

The project comes with several datasets, the main one being tx_prepared, which is a clean join of the three source datasets (tx, cards and merchants).

In short, tx_prepared contains comprehensive information about credit card transactions (from tx), including the associated merchant details (from merchants) and credit card specifics (from cards), such as transaction status and amount, merchant location and category, and cardholder creditworthiness.

Add some charts to the project#

Let’s first create two charts quickly from the tx_prepared dataset.

Create a bar chart#

  1. From the Flow, open the tx_prepared dataset.

  2. Click on the Charts tab (or use the keyboard shortcut g + v).

  3. From the panel on the left, drag and drop:

    • Count of records in the Show (Y) field.

    • purchase_date in the By (X) field.

  4. In the dropdown menu of the purchase_date variable, set the Date ranges to Month.

Dataiku screenshot of the vertical bars chart created.

Create a pivot table#

Now, let’s add a pivot table.

  1. At the bottom of the screen, click + Chart.

  2. In the chart type dropdown, select Pivot table.

  3. From the panel on the left, drag and drop:

    • cardholder_fico_score in the Rows field.

    • item_category and authorized_flag in the Columns field.

    • purchase_amount in the Value field.

    • purchase_amount in the Color field.

  4. In the dropdown menu of the cardholder_fico_score variable, set the Number of bins to 10.

  5. In the dropdown menu of the authorized_flag variable, set the Binning mode to None, use raw values.

  6. On top of the table, delete the default title (Avg of purchase_amount by item_category and cardholder_fico_score) and replace it with Purchase amount average.

Dataiku screenshot of the pivot table created.

Publish to a dashboard#

Let’s now publish the charts to a dashboard.

  1. Click the Publish button on the top right.

  2. Select all of the charts that you’ve created.

  3. In the Dashboards dropdown, select Create new dashboard … and name it Transaction Report.

  4. Click Create to turn the charts into insights, and publish them to Page 1 of the new dashboard in one step.

    The dashboard opens in edit mode.

Dataiku screenshot of the dialog for adding insights to a dashboard.

Explore dashboard options#

Edit the dashboard tiles#

Now, let’s modify the layout and behavior of the dashboard.

  1. Click on the Count by purchase_date on tx_prepared vertical bars chart insight.

  2. In the Tile settings panel on the left, in the Title field, enter the new name Number of transactions by month.

  3. On the top-right corner, click Save (or use the keyboard shortcut Cmd/Ctrl + s).

Dataiku screenshot of a dashboard being edited.

Adjust the dashboard layout#

In a dashboard, you can:

  • Drag and drop each tile to change the layout.

  • Adjust the size of each tile for a clearer view of its insight.

To do so:

  1. Click on the Purchase amount average on tx_prepared pivot table.

  2. Drag it down and increase its width and height to obtain a wider view of the table.

  3. Adjust the other insight to improve its display.

  4. Click Save.

Dataiku screenshot of a dashboard in progress.

Note

Note how the insights include a Sample warning label to indicate that they do not represent the complete dataset.

Add an insight to a dashboard#

Let’s add another insight to a new page on the dashboard.

  1. Click the + icon in the left bar to add a new page.

  2. Click the + New Tile button to add a new tile and select Dataset.

    Dataiku screenshot of the dialog for adding a new tile to a dashboard.

  3. In the dialog that opens:

    • Select tx_prepared as the source dataset.

    • Enter Transaction table as the insight name.

    • Click Add.

    Dataiku screenshot of the dialog for adding a new dataset tile to a dashboard.

Feel free to experiment adding different kinds of tiles, such as another chart or dataset.

Important

Depending on the object you want to add, you may get a warning stating that the object is not yet shared with dashboard-only users and offering to add it to authorized objects. Note that object permissions are set in the Project security page. To access it:

  1. From the top navigation bar, select the More Options > Security menu.

  2. In the left panel, click on Authorized objects.

Dataiku screenshot of the Project security page.

Export a dashboard#

Warning

For this last step, users on a self-managed instance will need to have an administrator first enable the graphics export feature.

When you are satisfied with your dashboard, you can export it.

  1. In the Actions tab of your dashboard, click the Export button.

  2. Adjust the file type, size, and orientation of your export as needed.

  3. Click Export Dashboard.

Dataiku screenshot of the dialog for exporting a dashboard.

What’s next?#

You’ve just created your first dashboard. Follow the Tutorial | Dashboard management to master all the features of this visualization and reporting tool.