Widgets & chart types

A dashboard is a grid of widgets. Each widget is one question asked of your data, and configuring it is always the same three decisions: what data, how to draw it, and how to slice it.

1. Data source

• Page views — traffic to your pages, optionally filtered to a single URL. Page views and impressions are the same number; see Analytics overview.
• Custom events — a specific event you have defined, such as Sign Up Clicks. If the list is empty you have no events yet — see the no-code event builder.

Pick a metric type and aggregation to say whether you want a count, a sum or an average, and a date range from last week out to the last six months.

2. Chart type

• Summary — a single number. The right choice for a KPI you check rather than study.
• Line — change over time. The default for anything with a date on the x-axis.
• Bar — comparison between categories.
• Pie and Donut — parts of a whole. Readable up to about six slices, not more.
• Table — when the exact values matter more than the shape.
• Scatter — the relationship between two measures.
• Map — anything broken down by country.

3. Break it down

Break down by splits a single line into one series per value of a dimension — traffic by device, sign-ups by campaign, and so on. The server caps a breakdown at 50 series, so a very high-cardinality dimension such as a raw URL is better served by a table.

Filters

• Filter by URL — narrow a page-views widget to one page or path.
• Filter by segment — restrict the widget to a saved segment. Leave it on All visitors to ignore the dashboard's segment entirely.

Layout

Widgets are dragged into columns. Give each one a short title and, where it is not self-evident, a description — a dashboard is usually read by someone who did not build it.

Next: share the dashboard with people who do not have a Spectry account.