Canvas basics

A dashboard is a canvas of cards — charts, tables, KPIs, text, images, parameters, and filters — arranged on a grid across one or more pages.

Create a dashboard, step by step

New dashboard opens a page with every way to start one, each a card: Blank dashboard, Build with AI (the AI chat plans it and asks before it builds) and Import a definition (a dashboard exported from another workspace). Choose Blank dashboard there, or beside New dashboard on the list, name it from its title’s menu (Rename the dashboard), and start adding cards. Edits save on their own.

1. Open Dashboards and choose New dashboard.

   

2. New dashboard opens a page of ways to start: a blank canvas, building one with AI, or importing a definition. Choose Blank dashboard.

   

3. The editor gives the canvas the screen: one bar at the top, and at the left a rail of tools in words (Insert, Data, Pages, Layers, Style, and Versions at its foot), each opening a drawer over the canvas that folds once used.

   

4. Choose the name in the top bar: its menu starts with Rename the dashboard. Type the new name and press Enter. Changes are saved automatically; beside the name it says Saved.

   

5. Open Data in the rail. Fields lists the models you can use; open one to see its tables and fields. These are what you drag onto the canvas.

   

6. Editing needs a window at least 1024 px wide. On a phone or a narrower window the editor opens the dashboard as readers see it, and says so: you can read, filter and comment there. Widen the window and you are back in the editor.

   

The dashboard exists from the moment you open Blank dashboard, titled Untitled Dashboard — that is what lets edits save on their own. If you leave without adding anything, it is only a draft: you can delete it yourself from the Dashboards list even if your role cannot delete dashboards, and one nobody touches is removed automatically after 7 days. See Drafts nobody touched.

Adding cards

Choose Insert on the rail. Its search, Find a visual, comes first, then Ask AI to add a chart where your workspace offers it. A Popular group covers the common picks (Column, Line, Area, Pie, KPI, Table, Stacked Bar, Combo); the rest is grouped by what you’re trying to show — comparison, trend, composition, distribution, relationship, geo, indicators, data, content, shapes, and filters — each group folded under its name and count until you open it, and a search opens every group it finds something in. A tile places its card and folds the drawer. See Charts & formatting for the complete list.

Beyond charts, you can insert:

• Content cards — Text, Heading, Image, Divider, Link, Button (navigate to a page or URL), Embed (iframe), and SQL (drop a SQL query result straight onto the canvas via the query dialog).
• Shapes — rectangle, ellipse, triangle, line, arrow, and Callout notes (info/success/warning/danger) for annotation.
• Filter cards — Dropdown, Multi-select, Number range, and Date range; see Filters & interactivity.
• Blocks — ready-made presets: a KPI row (three KPIs) or a Section (heading + divider).

When you have multiple pages, newly inserted cards drop onto the active page.

A new chart, KPI, table or filter card is selected the moment it lands and scrolled into view, with Data open on its Fields. It starts on the data model most cards on the page use (or the dashboard’s, on a page with none), so its wells are ready for a field — see Add fields to a card. Text, images, shapes and other content cards just come into view.

Pages and page settings, step by step

Add, rename, reorder and delete pages, and set the canvas width and background.

1. Choose the plus beside the page tabs to add a page. A new page is empty until you add a card.

   

2. The three dots on a tab rename, duplicate, reorder or delete that page.

   

3. Page settings sets the canvas width, the page background color and an optional background image.

   

Add headings, text, buttons and SQL cards

Content cards come from the same Insert drawer as charts.

1. Search the Insert panel to find content cards: Heading, Text, Image, Divider, Button, shapes and SQL.

   

2. Choose a tile to add the card. A heading or text card is edited in place, with a small toolbar for bold, alignment and size.

   

3. A Button card has a label and a link or action. Use it to send viewers to another dashboard or page.

   

4. A SQL card shows the result of a query. Pick a saved query or write SQL, choose how to visualise it, and check the preview before you insert it.

   

Multi-page dashboards

Pages, on the rail, lists the dashboard’s pages in order, the open one marked, with Add page at the top. Choosing a page opens it and folds the drawer; the foot of the canvas says which page is open, of how many.

• A page’s options — its ⋯ (named Page options for the page), a right-click on its row, or Shift+F10 on it: Rename page, Duplicate page, Move page up, Move page down, Hide page (or Show page) and Delete page…, each on that page, without opening it. Reports’ pages use the same words.
• Rename — from the page’s options, or press F2 on it.
• Reorder — drag a page in the list, pick Move page up / Move page down from its options, or press Alt+↑ / Alt+↓ (or Alt+← / Alt+→) on a focused page; screen readers hear the new position.
• Duplicate, hide, or delete — from the page’s options. Deleting a page also deletes its cards, so it asks first, saying how many. Hidden pages stay visible (dimmed) to authors but never reach viewers, shares, or embeds.
• Keyboard — ↑ / ↓ move between pages, Home / End jump to the ends, Enter opens the focused page, and Shift+F10 (or the Menu key) opens its options menu — arrow keys move through it and Esc returns you to the page.
• Page settings (Style on the rail → Page background and size…) — configure per-page background colour or layered background image, adjust page padding, or set a fixed max-width for centered canvas layouts.

Ctrl K finds Open a page, Add page, Rename the page and the rest by their names.

The open page is part of the address (?page=<page-id>), so refreshing keeps you on it, Back and Forward step through the pages you visited, and a copied link opens the same page. Preview shows the pages as tabs read-only, listing only the pages a viewer would see.

Move between pages as a viewer

A dashboard with more than one page shows its pages as tabs above the cards.

1. A dashboard with more than one page shows its pages as tabs. The page you are on is marked.

   

2. Select another tab to move to that page. The cards, and the page name, change.

   

3. You can also move between the tabs with the arrow keys once a tab has focus.

   

Configuring a card

Select a card: its quick bar sits above it (see The editor) and Card settings opens in the selection’s panel at the right, with three tabs:

• Data — the data model, the field wells (what the chart shows, each with + Add field), per-card filters, SQL bindings, quick-calculations, and row limits.
• Format — every visual option, searchable; see Charts & formatting.
• Layout — exact numeric position (X / Y / W / H) in grid units.

A chart, KPI, table or filter card with nothing in its wells opens on Data; otherwise the tab you last used stays open. When you start dragging a field, the selected chart’s Card settings switches to Data and scrolls its wells into view.

Header presets & chromeless cards

Card headers offer five presets — Plain, Accent bar, Filled band, Underline, and Minimal — so all cards share one visual rhythm without hand-styling each. For bespoke layouts and infographics, you can also toggle chromeless cards to hide the card container, background, and borders entirely.

Card-level controls

Attach interactive controls (tabs, dropdowns, or segmented toggles) directly to a card header so viewers can switch lenses — such as toggling between Actual, Budget, and Forecast — without affecting other cards on the canvas.

Add to Report

Promote any dashboard visual directly into a report: choose Add to report on the card’s quick bar (in More actions) or its right-click menu to launch the report block placement dialog.

Colours and fonts

Every colour and font of a dashboard is a tile that shows what it holds, a colour’s swatch with its name (Accent, Series colour 3, 40 % lighter) or its code, a font’s name in its own face. In Edit mode, choose one to open the colour panel or the font panel in the selection’s panel. Ctrl+K finds each by its name (Fill colour, Line colour, Font).

Where	Colour tiles	Font tiles
The quick bar	A chart’s Colour, a shape’s Fill colour and Outline colour, a heading’s Text colour, a divider’s Line colour	A heading’s Font; a chart’s, a KPI’s, a table’s or a filter card’s in More actions
Card settings → Format	Every colour of the card’s format: Title colour, Text colour, Header background, Background, Axis label colour, Gridline colour, Data label colour, Legend text colour, each series’ and each category’s colour, a colour scale’s Low, Middle and High, and each formatting rule’s colours	Font, under Typography
A heading’s, a shape’s or a divider’s Card settings	A heading’s Text colour and Background, a shape’s Fill colour and Outline colour, a divider’s Line colour	A heading’s Font
A text card’s toolbar, in Card settings	Colour of the selected words and Highlight	Font of the selected words
Style → Page background and size…	The page’s Background colour	—

The colour panel lists In this dashboard (its colours, most used first), the theme’s colours under its name (Graphite Dark theme, or Meridian style once a style is chosen), your brand kit’s colours, and Custom colour; search finds a colour by name, a word such as blue, or a code. The theme’s colours are its canvas, card, border, text, muted text and accent colours and its eight series colours, each with six shades, and they are marked follows the theme: a card given one keeps it as the theme’s, so it changes with the theme or the style. A code stays the code it is. A field’s empty swatch puts back the theme’s own (The theme’s title colour, No outline, The palette’s colour). A text colour shows its contrast on what the text sits on (the card’s background; a heading’s, the page), at 4.5:1: a colour under that line is called low contrast, a warning only. Each pick is one step Undo takes back, and a drag in Custom colour shows on the card as it goes and is one step too.

• A chart’s Colour opens its first series’ colour, led by Palettes for every series, the curated palettes, those that read best on the theme’s card colour first, each applied to every series at once; Use the theme’s series colours takes a palette of the card’s own away. A chart coloured by slice (a pie, a donut, a funnel, a treemap, a sunburst, a sankey or a gauge) opens Slice colours instead: the palettes for every slice, then the chart’s slices, one chosen at a time (the arrows move the choice), its colour in the panel; where the slices aren’t known yet (a treemap’s tiles, data still loading), the palettes alone. A map opens its Colour scale: Sequential, Divergent or Custom, each stop of a custom scale in the panel.
• A text card’s words take the colour as a code, as the text card draws it, and keep their six fonts (Geist, Georgia, Times New Roman, Courier New, Arial and Verdana); select the words first.
• The font panel lists your brand kit’s fonts first, then the dashboard’s own (In this dashboard), the recently used and popular ones, every bundled family by kind and the fonts of your computer, each name in its own face. At its foot, Use the theme’s font, which names it (Use the theme’s font (Inter)), takes the card’s own font away.
• Under the colour lock the panel offers Allowed colours alone, the look’s colours and the brand’s, and says Your company keeps dashboards in its brand kit’s colours.; a colour in use that is off the brand is listed first, marked Not in the brand kit. Under the font lock the font panel offers the brand’s fonts alone.
• Back, or Esc, returns to where you were: to Card settings on the same tab, with the same sections open and the keyboard on the tile that opened the panel; to the quick bar’s tile; or, for the page’s background, to Page settings, open again on its tile.

Change all

After a pick, the panel’s foot says where else the dashboard holds the colour or font you started from, and offers to change it there too: on This page or Everywhere. Say Northwind’s sales dashboard has two pages, Overview and Regions, and still carries last year’s brand orange, #DC701C: as the title colour of two charts on Overview, Revenue by month and Gross margin by month, and as the line colour of a divider on Regions. You give Revenue by month the theme’s Accent under Title colour, and the foot says #DC701C is in 2 more parts on 2 pages., with This page and Everywhere. Everywhere changes both and says Changed 2 parts. This page changes the other title (Changed 1 part on this page.) and then offers the divider: #DC701C is in 1 more part on 1 other page., with Everywhere. Where every one is on the page you are on, the foot has a single Change all.

• What it reaches. Every colour of a card’s format, a shape’s fill and outline, a divider’s line and the words of text cards (each run of words in the colour is a part, and takes the code the new colour paints). A code and a theme colour that paint the same are one colour. A locked card is left alone (its own tiles still change it), and the page’s background is never changed by it.
• A font. The font panel’s Change all counts the cards set in the font (cards), or, for a text card’s words, the runs of words in it (parts).
• One step. Change all is one step Undo takes back, saved once.

Customize… has no Change all: it changes the theme itself, and every card that follows the theme follows it (see Themes).

Parameters and variables

Define dashboard-level parameters under Data → Filters → Parameters… on the rail:

• Support for text, number, date, boolean, and list parameter types with configurable default values.
• Bind parameters to SQL card queries or filter cards to dynamically control query clauses and card expressions across the canvas.
• Configure auto-apply or explicit apply triggers for parameter changes.

Finding fields

Data’s Fields tab, on the rail, holds the Models & Fields tree — every data model you can use, its tables and fields, and its SquareX measures under ƒx Measures. An icon gives each field’s type: # a number, Σ a measure, a calendar a date, a clock a time of day, a toggle true/false, a globe a location, T text. Type in Search fields to cut through a large model:

• It matches model, table, and column names, and SquareX measure names.
• It auto-expands and loads tables you have never opened, so a match surfaces even from inside a collapsed table. Match a table’s name and you get that table’s whole field list.
• Clearing the box restores your own expansion state — it doesn’t collapse everything you had open.
• Enter in the box adds the first field whose own name matches, ↓ moves into the results, and Esc clears the search. When nothing matches, the list says so and offers Clear search.

A result is added or dragged exactly like a field in the tree.

Add fields to a card

Pick a field and it goes where it belongs on the selected card; dragging is optional.

• Click a field — or press Enter on it, or use the + at the end of its row — to add it to the selected chart, KPI, table or filter card, in the well that fits it: a second dimension on a bar chart becomes its Series / Color, a measure joins Values, a new measure replaces a KPI’s value, a table gets another column. A message names the well it went to, and anything it replaced. Where a field goes has the rule for every chart type.

• With nothing selected — or with a text, image, shape or SQL card selected — a click starts a new chart (beside that card, if one is selected): a column chart, or a line chart for a date. A dimension lands on its X axis plotted by its count, so the first click already draws something; a measure goes to Values.

• Drag a field from anywhere on its row, name included:

  • onto a well in Card settings — it goes into that well, and a well that holds one field swaps it. An empty well reads Drop a field or click +;
  • onto a chart on the canvas — it goes into the well that fits, as a click would. Before you let go, the chart says what will happen (for example Add region to Series / Color), or why it can’t take the field. Dropped on a text, image or other content card, the field starts a new chart beside it;
  • onto empty canvas — a new chart starts where the outline shows, marked New chart from and the field’s name.

  While you drag, every well of the selected card says what a drop would do: Drop here, Replace and the field it would replace, Already here, or why not — From another data model, or Measures go in a value well for a SquareX measure. A drop anywhere else adds nothing and says Not added. Esc cancels the drag; the selected card stays selected.

• From the keyboard: on a field, press Space to pick it up, then the arrow keys to move between drop targets — the selected card’s wells first, then the charts on the page, then the empty canvas — and Space or Enter to drop it. A screen reader hears the field and each target by name.

• + Add field on any well opens a searchable list of the card’s fields, best fits first, and fills exactly that well. Fields already in it are marked In well. A card with no data model yet asks you to Choose a data model first, unless the workspace has only one.

An empty chart says how to fill it: Click a field or drop it on this chart, and what it still needs.

On a touch screen, tap a field or its +.

A card reads one data model. A new card takes the model of the first field you add, by any of these routes. Once a card shows fields from one model, a field from another is refused — drop that one on empty canvas to start a new chart from it.

The fields in a well

Each field in a well is a pill. Rename it in place; outside the grouping wells, change its aggregation and, in Values, its quick calc. Its ⋯ menu moves it to another well of the card (Move to, which names any field it would replace), up or down its well (Move up, Move down; a pivot table’s extra levels move up a level or down a level), or takes it off the card (Remove). What a field is counted as in each well is in Charts & formatting.

Autosave, versions and deploy

The save state sits beside the dashboard’s name in the top bar. Versions, at the foot of the rail, holds the versions and the deployment stages.

1. Edits save automatically. The status bar at the bottom shows Saved, with undo and redo beside it.

   

2. Versions & deploy shows the current version and the deployment pipeline. Publish New Version saves a version you can compare, restore or promote between stages.

   

Designer modes

The editor has three modes, one switch in the top bar, so you can work at the right altitude:

Mode	For
Arrange	layout only — move and resize cards without accidentally editing content
Edit	the full authoring chrome (data wells, formatting, parameters, layers)
Preview	see and test the live dashboard exactly as viewers will (including full cross-filtering, hierarchy drill-down, card controls, each card’s Card actions and the menu of a data point you right-click), without leaving the editor

From the keyboard, Tab to the switch and use the arrow keys to move between the modes. Esc, or Exit preview, takes you from Preview back to Edit.

The editor

The editor gives the dashboard the screen: the app’s own menu and bar give way to one bar at the top, a rail of tools at the left, and small pills at the canvas’s foot. Every action is also a command: press Ctrl+K (⌘K on a Mac), or choose Search commands or ask AI in the middle of the bar, and type its name.

• The top bar — the logo tile (the app’s menu, with notifications, theme and your account) and Back to Dashboards; the dashboard’s name, which is its menu: Rename the dashboard, Comments and the View (Desktop view or Phone view); Published once it is, and the save state; Undo and Redo. At the right: Comments, the Arrange / Edit / Preview switch with the desktop and phone views beside it (from a 1280 px window; narrower, they wait in the name’s menu), Share with its arrow (More sharing actions: Image (PNG), PDF, PowerPoint (PPTX)), More dashboard actions (Refresh data and Auto-refresh; while an interval is set it shows on the button) and Publish. In Preview the bar holds Drill up and Drill down where the model has a hierarchy, Full screen, the views and Exit preview.
• The rail — at the left, each tool with its word: Insert, Data, Pages, Layers and Style, and Versions at its foot. A tool opens its drawer, 300 px wide, over the canvas’s left edge; one drawer is open at a time. It folds once used (a card placed, a page opened, a theme chosen), when you choose its tool again or its Fold button, or on Esc; the keyboard goes back to its tool.
  • Insert — Find a visual, Ask AI to add a chart where offered, then every card by group (see Adding cards).
  • Data — two tabs: Fields (Insert a saved query…, the models’ fields and measures, and the selected card’s wells under them) and Filters (the filters, Filters panel: where filters show for viewers, Parameters… and Saved views…).
  • Pages — the pages, Add page and each page’s options (see Multi-page dashboards).
  • Layers — every card on the page; select one hidden behind another, or lock, hide, rename or delete it.
  • Style — Choose a style, the built-in and workspace Themes, Customize…, Reset colours… and Page background and size… (see Themes).
  • Versions — the versions and the deployment stages (see Autosave, versions and deploy).
• The selection’s panel — at the right, 300 px, only while a card is selected: Card settings (see Configuring a card); Close card settings puts it away until the next selection.
• The quick bar — over the selected card, never over an open drawer or the panel: at most five controls, its first actions and, when it has more, More actions with the rest, each with its shortcut. Each kind of card leads with its own: a chart with Chart type, Colour and Filter; a KPI, table or filter card with Edit, then Colour and Filter where it has them; a shape with Edit, Fill colour and Outline colour; a heading with Edit, Font and Text colour; a divider with Edit and Line colour; any other card with Edit. Duplicate, Expand and Delete follow where there is room; More actions holds the rest, such as a chart’s Font, Add to report, Lock, the stacking (Bring to front, Send to back…) and Rename the card. The colour and font tiles show in Edit mode (see Colours and fonts). Several cards selected show Align left, Align top, Match size and Group first (Ungroup for a group), the other alignments, sizes and distributions in More actions (see Multi-select and card grouping).
• The right-click menu — the same commands, by what you right-click: one card leads with Edit and what its quick bar leads with, then Copy, Cut, Paste and Duplicate, Copy format and Paste format, Rename the card, Expand, Add to report and Show underlying data, Lock and Hide, Order (with Free overlap on) and Delete. Several cards have Group, Align and Match; a group Ungroup and Select this card first. The empty canvas has Paste, Select all, Insert (the drawer’s Charts, Data and Text and media, and Ask AI to add a chart), Page background and size…, Condensed grid (24 columns) and Free overlap. A right-click outside the selection selects the card first; Shift+F10 or the Menu key opens the menu from the keyboard. See Right-click menus and selecting several things.
• The pills at the foot — at the left, the page open (its name, and which of how many) and what is selected; at the right, 24 columns (the condensed grid), Free overlap, and in the phone view Reset to auto once its layout was changed.

The keyboard reaches all of it: Tab moves between the top bar, the rail, the cards and the foot; the arrow keys move along the quick bar and along the foot’s pills, and nudge the selected card only on the canvas itself; Esc folds a drawer, giving the keyboard back to its tool. Ctrl+/ lists every shortcut (Keyboard shortcuts).

On a phone or a narrow window

Editing needs a window at least 1024 px wide. On a phone, a tablet held upright or a narrower window, the editor opens the dashboard as its readers see it (see Exploring dashboards), and says so under its header: Editing needs a window at least 1024 px wide. You can read, filter and comment here. Widen the window and you are back in the editor. A blank dashboard waits for a wider window there: the New dashboard page says so at the top and on the card, and Blank dashboard on the list says Creating needs a window at least 1024 px wide. Build with AI and Import a definition work at any width.

Focus and full screen

• Expand opens one card in an overlay (with its own fullscreen toggle) — for reading a dense table or presenting a single chart. Esc exits.
• Full screen shows the dashboard alone, as its readers see it. In the editor it is in Preview; readers have it in the dashboard’s header (see Exploring dashboards).

Full screen from Preview

Full screen (in Preview, just before Exit preview), or F anywhere outside a text field, shows the dashboard, as its readers see it, alone in your browser's full screen: no menu, no header, no toolbars or panels. Move the pointer, tap the screen or pressTab (the control is the first stop) to show the small Exit full screen control at the top right; it hides again after 2 seconds. Esc or F leaves, and puts you back on theFull screen button. A screen reader hears it go in and out.

In a desktop browser's full screen the browser takes Esc itself: it leaves full screen first, and a card's Expand, a dialog or a list you opened stays open, to close with its own control or a secondEsc. Where the view fills the window instead (below), Esc closes what is open first.

Drill up, Drill down and the pages of a dashboard of several are in the exit control; the filters in use stay listed over the cards. Leaving Preview leaves full screen too.

Where the browser doesn't allow full screen (a page embedded without the permission, Safari on an iPhone), the same view fills the window instead, and says so once.

Saving, concurrency, and undo

• Autosave — every edit saves on its own, and the save state beside the dashboard’s name says when everything is Saved. An edit that can’t reach the server stays queued on the page and is tried again — at once, then less often, then once a minute, and straight away when your connection comes back. One card that keeps failing doesn’t hold up the others. When saving keeps failing, a message says Your changes aren’t saving, and leaving the page while anything is unsaved asks first. An edit the server rejects outright (an invalid setting) is dropped, with a message saying which card and why.
• Saving now — Ctrl+S sends every waiting edit at once and answers: Saved once it has all landed, or Some changes weren’t saved. Reload to see what’s stored.
• Optimistic concurrency control — the editor uses concurrency tokens to protect your work. If another collaborator or browser tab saves the same dashboard first, a banner says so and saving pauses until you reload, so neither of you overwrites the other.
• Undo & redo — Ctrl+Z undoes actions and Ctrl+Shift+Z (or Ctrl+Y) redoes them.
• Del (or Backspace) deletes the selected cards once you confirm — the dialog reminds you that You can undo this with Ctrl+Z — and Ctrl+K opens the command palette. The full list is in Keyboard shortcuts.

Publication and governance

• Draft vs. Published — keep work in draft state while building; publish when ready for viewers.
• Data Quality publication gate — when publishing, DataSquares checks the status of critical data quality rules on the underlying data models. If critical checks are failing, a quality-gate warning/block dialog alerts you before publication.
• Stage Promotion & ALM — promote dashboards across environments (dev, staging, prod) with field-level diff inspection (DashboardDiffDialog) and version snapshot rollbacks.

AI on the canvas

• Per-card AI summary — authors can generate and save an AI summary on a chart, table or KPI card built on a data model, giving viewers an instant natural-language breakdown. Viewers that row-level security limits see a note instead (who sees a summary).
• Card insights — run “Explain this change” and “Analyze” (anomalies, key influencers, forecasts) right from the card menu.
• Build with AI chat — describe the cards, filters or whole dashboard you want in AI chat and approve exactly what it adds before anything changes.
• Ask AI to add a chart, in Insert on the rail — describe a chart and choose Add with AI. The request opens in AI chat with this dashboard and the page you have open as its context. It uses AI credits, and nothing changes until you approve what the assistant adds.

What viewers get

People with view access get the same dashboard minus the authoring chrome: they can filter, cross-filter, drill down hierarchies, use card controls, save Saved views, comment, refresh, present, ask AI, set metric alerts, and export — but not move, edit, or add cards. The full viewer guide is Exploring dashboards; access details in Sharing.

Related

• Charts & formatting
• Filters & interactivity
• Layout & productivity tools
• Right-click menus and selecting several things
• Themes
• Sharing & embeds