Setting up an analytics dashboard

Learn how to create dashboards and populate them with questions you have about your shop's processes.

Note: The Advanced analytics feature is part of our Enterprise pricing tier. If you're interested in implementing Advanced analytics for your shop, reach out to your Customer Success Manager or our Support team today.

Intro to analytics dashboards

Creating analytics dashboards in Paperless Parts is a great way to streamline your shop's data management and decision-making processes. A dashboard is a visual collection of answers to questions you're asking about your shop - such as "which accounts had the highest win rate this quarter" or "how much did I quote in the last year".

Analytics dashboards are highly customizable and accessible from anywhere with an internet connection, providing you with real-time data on your shop. Customizing your shop's dashboards can help your team collaborate effectively and quickly make informed decisions, helping you stay competitive and agile in an ever-changing business landscape.

With the flexibility of our dashboards and the vast amount of shop data you can access in a query, there are nearly infinite types of dashboards you can create in Paperless Parts. If your shop has Advanced analytics, there's also no limit to the number of dashboards you can have on your Analytics page.

How to create a dashboard

Let's start by creating a new dashboard. First, select Analytics from the top navigation bar to navigate to the Analytics page.

Click the three dots on the right of your screen, below New Query. Select Create.

Note: If you have a large number of dashboards, you may need to scroll through the menu to find the Create option.

Create a title for your new dashboard and click Save to confirm. Don’t worry - you can always change it later.

Once created, the new dashboard will appear in line with the other dashboards in your Analytics tab.

How to add tiles to your dashboard

A new dashboard will be empty, with no queries or tiles. There are two ways to populate your dashboard with tiles.

Create a new query from scratch
Copy an existing query from another dashboard

Create a new query

To add a new query to your dashboard, start by navigating to the dashboard that you want to create the query on. In this example, we'll create a new query called "Quotes Count on New Dashboard".

Select the dashboard you want to edit - for this example, "New Dashboard" - and click New Query to open the Query Builder.

Here, you can define your question by selecting the measures, dimensions, and segments needed for this query.

In this case, we want to create a "Quotes Count" tile for our dashboard, so we'll select the "Quotes Count" measure. There are no further restrictions on this question, so we won't add any dimensions, segments, times, or filters.

Once you've finalized your query, select Save to dashboard.

Enter information about how the tile should look on the dashboard, including the name, chart type, and dashboard. For this example, the name will be "Quotes Count", we want to see the number of quotes as a "Number", and we want to add this tile to the "New Dashboard".

Click Save to confirm. The tile will then appear on your desired dashboard.

Copy an existing query

Sometimes, it can be easier to work off of an existing query than create a new one from scratch. Copying a query allows you to manipulate an existing tile in a new dashboard. In this example, we'll copy "Quote/Order Activity by Material" from the "Material Based Analysis" dashboard to "New Dashboard".

Click the three lines in the top right corner of the tile you want to copy - in this instance, "Quote/Order Activity by Material". Select Copy.

Enter information about the copied tile, including the new name, new chart type (if desired), and dashboard you'll be copying to.

Click Copy to confirm and create the new, copied tile.

The tile will appear in the destination dashboard, where you can edit it independently of the tile that you copied it from.

To edit the copied tile's query, click the three lines in the top right corner of the tile and select Edit query.