Using custom dashboards

To help you work more efficiently while at the same time make you feel more at home, you can customise dashboards with pre-installed widgets and widgets developed by your studio.

Widgets are the areas that your dashboards are built up of and that usually consists of either a spreadsheet or some kind of grid.

An ftrack widget can be almost anything that can be rendered on a web page, from a component that fetches data from within ftrack to a frame that shows an arbitrary web page.

Dashboards that you have created (the dashboard configuration) can be shared with all users or specific users in ftrack. Follow the steps below to share a dashboard with other user(s):

Go to a custom dashboard on a project, hover the dashboard name in the menu and click the arrow to the right. Select Edit in the menu.

Click Share in the bottom toolbar to bring up the Share dashboard dialog. To share the dashboard with all users, select Share with everyone and click Save. To share with specific users, select Share with specific user(s) and add users to the Add user(s) box, write an optional message and then click Save.

If you don’t want to share a dashboard with a specific user anymore, you can remove a user in the Share dialog by clicking the remove icon next to any user.

To create a new dashboard and add widgets to it, follow these steps:

Click Create dashboard in the Dashboards menu, or the plus icon.

Enter a name for your dashboard and select layout: one large area, two or three columns. Click Create.

In the next dialog, you have the possibility to add the widgets you like to create the dashboard you want. Select widgets and click Done.

To see your new dashboard in action, click Save and your dashboard will be reloaded.

Note

Don’t forget to click Save when you’ve made any changes, to ensure you don’t lose anything.

Dashboards you have created are editable to enable you to manage widgets and change layout etc. Follow these steps to edit a dashboard:

Go to a custom dashboard on a project, hover the dashboard name in the menu and click the arrow to the right. Select Edit in the menu.

This is the edit view and that is recognised by the toolbar at the bottom that consists of the Add widget button and Share button in addition to the Edit and Delete buttons.

The Add widget button opens the Add widget dialog where you can manage widgets. Via the Share button you can share the dashboard with all or specific users in ftrack. The Edit button opens the Edit dialog where you can edit the name and layout of the dashboard, and by clicking the Delete button you can remove your dashboard.

Your dashboard can be customised to consist of exactly what you want to see (as long as there is a widget for it, and if there isn’t your studio can develop one and add it to ftrack). To manage widgets on a dashboard, follow these steps:

Go to a custom dashboard on a project, hover the dashboard name in the menu and click the arrow to the right. Select Edit in the menu.

To add or remove widgets, do the following:

To add a widget
Click Add widget in the bottom toolbar to bring up the Add widget dialog.

To remove a widget
Click the remove icon in the top of a widget in the dashboard builder view. If the widget is of single type (that can only be added once per dashboard), you can also remove it by clicking an added widget card again in the Add widget dialog.

ftrack comes with a set of pre-installed widgets that you can use to build your own dashboards:

Activity
Shows the activity feed with a filter toolbar.
Assigned resources
Shows all assigned resources with the tasks in their different states. It can be set to show total number of tasks or the bid.
Cumulative flow diagram
Shows an area graph that depicts the quantity of work in a given state. Particularly interesting details that the graph shows are how much work that is in progress and how long time every state takes.
Info
Shows the properties of the entity you’re currently looking at.
Insights
Shows insights boxes. Insights boxes can show information such as task count, task bid, shot count etc. and can be managed in the widget settings dialog.
Insights top
Works like the Insights widget with the difference that this widget is automatically placed in the top of the dashboard.
Latest assets
Shows the latest assets on all levels in the hierarchy.
Latest lists
Shows the latest added lists on all levels in the hierarchy.
Note
Shows notes posted on the entity you’re currently looking at.
Status not done (advanced)
Shows in a chart how many tasks that are currently not done.
Tasks bid left
Shows task bid left in a chart.
Tasks burndown
Shows in a chart how much of the bid that is left vs. task completion.
The burndown can be used to get an estimate on how much time is spent on a project, compared to how much has been completed. In both, the bid estimate on the project is considered.
Actual burndown This is the number of completed tasks over time. Starts at 100% and goes down to 0% when the whole project is completed and all tasks have status Done.
Bid days left This is the number of bid days/hours left when the actual time has been subtracted. This value will decrease over time when users log time to task.
If the project is executed 100% according to the plan, both the lines should hit 0 at the end of the project. Meaning that all the estimated time was used up and everything was completed.
Tasks by state
Shows in a chart how many tasks that are in every state.
Tasks not started
Shows in a chart all tasks currently not started.
Tasks statuses
Shows in a chart all tasks in every status.
Upcoming dates
Shows upcoming dates. The dates can be managed in the widget settings dialog.
Web view
Shows a web page frame that can load a custom web address. In order to add or update web view widgets you will need the "Manage custom widget" permission and have custom widgets enabled from System Settings > Advanced > Custom widgets.