Quick start: your first dashboard
From a spreadsheet to a shared dashboard, start to finish.
This walks the whole path once, quickly. Every step has a fuller page of its own.
1. Create a dashboard
From Dashboards, create a new one and give it a name. You start on an empty canvas with one page.
2. Add data
Open the Data pane and add a dataset. The fastest start is a CSV or Excel file — drop it in and the columns and their types are detected for you. Check the detected types before moving on; getting a date recognised as a date here saves work later.
3. Drop in a visual
Pick a visual from the Visualizations panel and it appears on the canvas. With it selected, drag fields from the Data pane into its wells — typically a category on one axis and a value on the other. The chart draws as soon as it has enough to draw.
4. Make it answer a question
A chart that shows a number is not yet a dashboard. Add:
- a Card or KPI for the headline figure,
- a Slicer so a reader can narrow the view,
- a second chart that breaks the same measure down a different way.
Click a bar in one chart and the others respond — that cross-filtering is on by default.
5. Share it
Open the share dialog and choose who can see it: keep it private, invite specific people, allow anyone with the link, or make it public. You can also embed it in another site.
Where to go next
- Uploading files — types, sizes, and what happens to your rows
- Choosing a chart — which visual answers which question
- Calculated columns vs measures — the concept that unlocks the formula engine