Dashboards are a powerful way of communicating business and financial performance. Castaway makes it easy to design multiple custom dashboards that help you tell the story of historic and/or future performance.
Apart from the Overview dashboard which is an inbuilt dashboard there are 4 other pre-configured dashboard that you can add instantly to your forecast by going to Reporting > Boards > New dashboard and choosing from:
- Balance sheet
- Cash flow
- Ratios
- Profit & Loss
Building a new dashboard from scratch is a very easy process as well which only takes a few steps:
- Add a new blank dashboard
- Add widgets (graphs, images or text)
- Adjust the Widget size and location
- Add data to each widget
- Review the Series Properties for each data item
- Review the display period for each data item
- Add widget title
- Tailor the appearance of each widget
1. Add a new dashboard
To add a new dashboard, go to Reporting > Boards and click on New Dashboard.
Pick either a blank portrait or landscape dashboard from the pop-up add dashboard screen.
To change the name of the new dashboard, click the Dashboard tab on the dashboard and type/paste the desired name.
A widget can be added by clicking on the green plus icon on the top left corner of the dashboard screen.
You can choose between graphs, images or text widgets.
There are 51 different types of preset widgets that you can choose from. or simply click on Period Stacked or 100% tabs to pick the type of graphs that you need to create your graph from scratch.
After you pick the desired graph from the galley, click on Graph Data to switch to the next screen where you can add/edit your graph data and their display options.
3. Adjust the Widget size and location
The Widget size can be adjusted by clicking on any of the 4 corners of the widget and dragging it You can also do a left-click anywhere on the widget and drag to move the widget around.
4. Add data to each widget
After you pick the desired graph from the galley, click on Graph Data to switch to the next screen where you can add/edit your graph data and their display options.
Or, in the case of an existing widget, you can double-click on the widget or just click on Edit data in the Dashboard design to bring up the Graph Data window.
To add a data series:
From the Graph Data dialogue, first select the Report Type from the drop-down list, then double double-click the required data row to move it into the Data Series list
If it is an image widget, Click on Add Image and then click on Browse and navigate and find the image you want and highlight and click open, this action will save that image in that file resource library, now you just need to click on that image and click OK to insert it in the image widget.
If it is a text widget, just click on the body of the widget and type or paste the desired text.
5. Review the Series Properties for each data item
To edit the style of each selected data series just highlight it under Data Series and choose the desired style available:
- Data Style: Select a different chart type for the data
- Display Type: Select a different display style for the data
- Report On: After Actuals are enabled, choose between Projected, Original Budget, Revised Budget, Variance v Original budget, variance v revised budget and variance revised budget v original budget data.
- Data Calculation: you can select between standard, Rolling months, Cumulative (Reset) and Cumulative (Ongoing) and select the desired Months and cycle end.
- Label: Enter a custom label for the data. If left blank, the default label is used
6. Review the display period for each data item
The data displayed for each widget can be controlled in 3 ways:
1. Use slider: the data displayed for each widget is affected by the Dashboard Month and you can adjust the date by sliding the green bar to the right or left.
2. Fixed dates: the display period does not change regardless of changes in the Dashboard Month
3. Relative Dates: the display period changes as the Dashboard Month changes and displays the selected duration with the selected period offset.
The above example will display data for the 12 months up to and including the Dashboard Month. If an Offset of 3 were added, the widget would display data for the 9 months up and including the Dashboard and then the following 3 months.
7. Add widget title
Add/edit the widget title by clicking on the top left corner of the widget
8. Tailor the appearance of each widget
Now that the widget has been created and data added, the remaining tabs will help you tailor the appearance of the widget to your requirements. You can change:
1. Show heading: to hide or display the widget title
2. Show border: to hide or display the widget border
3. Date Range: to adjust the display date in the widget
4. Palette: to change the chart colour
5. Graph background: add the background colour and blend type to the graph background
6. Graph area: add border and colour and blend style to graph area
7. Legend: Show/hide the Legend, change the font and display the position
8. Date Axis: Show/hide the axes, markers and gridlines, add axis labels, change the font and label and date formats
9. Value Axis: Show/hide the axes, markers and gridlines, add axis labels, change the font and label and value formats
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