Create custom dashboards#

A dashboard puts several analytics on one page: the figures and charts you check every week, side by side, read from the live schedule. Every project starts with four — Project Health, Schedule Trends, Resources and 3-Week Lookahead — and you can make as many more as you like, for a status meeting, a client update or your own tracking.

Note: Analytics and dashboards are a Pro feature. If Analytics shows a Pro Feature lock in the project tree, they're gated on your plan.

Step 1 — Ask Owl for the charts#

Describe what you want to see and where to put it. Owl builds each analytic, runs it, tells you what the numbers show, and makes the dashboard.

Here the request was "Chart planned labor hours per week by resource against available hours, compared with the Derisked Schedule scenario. Put it on a new dashboard called Crew Planning." Owl made the analytic and the Crew Planning dashboard, then read the numbers back: when the peak comes, how far it runs over the crew's available hours, and how the Derisked Schedule moves it. It also flagged two things worth knowing, such as the available-hours line being a total for the whole crew, so one person can be overloaded in a week that looks fine overall.

New dashboards appear under Dashboards in the project tree, and new analytics under Analytics, as soon as Owl makes them. A dashboard that is open updates in place.

Step 2 — Read a dashboard#

Open a dashboard from Dashboards in the project tree.

12341Figure tiles — each with its value, its difference from the baseline, its change since the last update, and a small trend line.2A chart card: its title, a one-line summary, and the chart.3Break down changes what the card is split by — and with it, the analytic itself.4The controls every card shares: which schedule to run on, a Filter, and Add analytic.

The Project Health dashboard opens with a row of figure tiles: the forecast finish, critical activities, negative float and average % complete. Each tile shows its value, the difference from the baseline ("+1 vs Baseline"), the change since the last update ("+1 since Oct 21"), and a small line of how it has moved. Under them, each card is one analytic.

On each card:

• Break down (or By Resource, By Status… once one is picked) splits the chart by another field. This changes the analytic itself, so the card remembers it.
• The ⋯ menu has Edit analytic (or double-click the card's title), Remove from dashboard, and Delete analytic.
• Drag a card by its title bar to move it, and drag its bottom-right corner to resize it.

Step 3 — Point the whole dashboard somewhere else#

The controls at the top of a dashboard apply to every card on it:

• Current schedule — run every card on a scenario instead. Switch back to compare.
• Filter — count only some activities on every card (one area, one trade, critical work only). It is added to each card's own filter.
• Add analytic — New analytic… opens the analytic editor and puts the new analytic here when you save it; Add existing lists the project's analytics that aren't on this dashboard yet.
• ⋯ — Rename or Delete dashboard. Deleting a dashboard keeps its analytics.

The Add analytic menu on a dashboard: New analytic…, then a list of existing analytics to add.

Tip: Build a dashboard once and keep it. Dashboards read the live schedule, so after each update every card is already current: there is nothing to re-run or re-export.

Make your own from scratch#

1. Click the + next to Dashboards in the project tree to make an empty dashboard, then ⋯ → Rename it.
2. Use Add analytic to add analytics the project already has, or New analytic… to build one in the editor.
3. Arrange the cards by dragging them.

Or ask Owl for the whole thing in one message, as in Step 1.

What to do next#

• Learn the editor — Charts and analytics covers the x axis, series, compare and filter.
• Report cost — Track cost and schedule with EVM.
• Report risk alongside progress — a simulation's P10–P90 finish can be a card on any dashboard.
• Measure a what-if — Analyze a scenario.