Card insights: explain, analyze, summarize
Every data card on a dashboard carries insight tools in its context menu. Explain this change and Analyze are statistical — the math runs on the server whether or not AI is configured. Summarize with AI writes a narrative and does need AI set up. View access is enough for all of them, and every result is computed under your data permissions — with row-level security in place, the analysis sees exactly the rows you’re allowed to see.
Explain this change
Section titled “Explain this change”When a number moved and you want to know why, right-click the card (or open its menu) and choose Explain this change.
- The tool compares the current period against the previous one by default; switch to a custom baseline if you want a different comparison window.
- Pick the dimension to break the change down by — region, product, channel, whatever the card’s model offers.
- You get the overall delta decomposed by that dimension: which members drove the change up, which pulled it down, and by how much.
It’s a fast first answer to “what happened here?” before you drill into the underlying data.
Analyze
Section titled “Analyze”Analyze on the same card menu opens a panel with three tabs. All three are deterministic statistics on the card’s own query results.
Anomalies
Section titled “Anomalies”Flags points that deviate from the series’ expected range. A sensitivity slider (2–4σ) controls how strict the detection is — lower values flag more points, higher values only the clear outliers. Each flagged point shows how far it deviated.
Key influencers
Section titled “Key influencers”Pick up to 8 breakdown dimensions and the tool ranks them by how much of the measure’s variance each one explains — a quick read on which dimension actually matters for the number you’re looking at.
Forecast
Section titled “Forecast”Projects the series 3, 6, or 12 periods ahead with a 95% confidence band, so you see both the expected path and the uncertainty around it.
Phrase it
Section titled “Phrase it”Each tab has an optional Phrase it toggle that asks the AI to write a short narrative of the findings. This is the only part of Analyze that touches AI — the anomaly detection, influencer ranking, and forecast all work without it. If AI isn’t configured on your server, the toggle simply isn’t available; the numbers still are.
AI card summaries
Section titled “AI card summaries”Summarize with AI on a card’s menu generates a short written summary of what the card shows and stores it on the card:
- The summary appears as a dismissible footer note under the card — and travels with it, so people on shared links and embeds see it too.
- Regenerate whenever the data has moved on, or choose Remove AI summary to delete it from the card.
Summaries require AI to be configured on the server by your administrator; usage counts against the workspace’s monthly token budget.
What needs AI — and what doesn’t
Section titled “What needs AI — and what doesn’t”| Tool | Works without AI |
|---|---|
| Explain this change | ✓ — pure statistics |
| Analyze (anomalies, influencers, forecast) | ✓ — pure statistics |
| Analyze → Phrase it | ✗ — needs AI configured |
| Summarize with AI | ✗ — needs AI configured |
Either way, nothing escapes your permissions: every computation and every narrative is based only on data you can already see.
Related
Section titled “Related”- Exploring dashboards — the rest of the viewer toolkit.
- AI chat — the same anomaly, influencer, and forecast tools, conversationally.
- Metric alerts — get notified when the number crosses a threshold.