Build your dashboard
Your dashboard is your own, not the school's, and the same board is on Dashboard and on Reports → Overview. Click Customise to move, resize, add, or remove tiles, then Done to save. Nothing is stored until you press Done.
For owners, admins, dispatchers and technicians
Your dashboard is your own, not the school's. Click "Customise" to move, resize, add or remove tiles, then "Done" to save. Nothing is stored until you press Done.
One board, in two places#
The board is the whole of WebDashboard, the page you land on when you sign in. The same board is also WebReports → Overview.
They are not two dashboards. They are one saved layout shown in two places, so a tile you move on the Dashboard has moved on Reports as well.
Everyone gets their own board, and changing yours changes nobody else's. There is no shared school dashboard.
Every figure opens the report behind it, so a number you distrust is one click from the rows that produced it.
What you start with#
Until you save your own layout, you get the default one: fourteen tiles, in four bands.
| Band | Tiles |
|---|---|
| Widgets | Up next, Needs attention |
| Operations | Flights, Flown, Efficiency, Cancellations |
| Money | Billed, Collected, Outstanding, Collected % |
| Trends | Booked and flown hours, Billed and collected |
| Breakdowns | Flights by aircraft, Billed by aircraft |
The operations and money rows are separate on purpose. Tiles you cannot see are dropped from your board, so a dispatcher, who has no access to the financial reports, loses the money row whole and keeps a tidy row of four rather than a row with holes in it.
Nothing is written down until the first time you press Done on your own changes.
Set the date range and the comparison#
Two selects sit in the toolbar above the tiles.
Date range: Last 7 days, Last 30 days, Last 90 days, Month to date, Year to date, Next 30 days, Next 90 days. It defaults to Last 30 days and drives every tile that has not overridden it.
Comparison: "vs previous period", "vs last year" or "No comparison". It decides what each number card's change percentage is measured against, and what the dashed line on a time chart is.
| Comparison | What it compares to |
|---|---|
| vs previous period | The same number of days immediately before this window |
| vs last year | The same calendar dates a year ago |
Changing either select counts as an unsaved edit, so remember to press Done.
Pick a shape#
| Shape | Metrics | Dimension | What it is for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Exactly one | None | One headline figure and its change |
| Line chart | Up to three | Required | A metric over time, or across a dimension |
| Bar chart | Exactly one | Required | Ranking: which aircraft flew most |
| Breakdown | Exactly one | Required | How a total divides, with the figures |
| Table | Up to six | Optional | The rows themselves |
| Widget | None | None | A built-in panel, see below |
Only columns the report marks as metrics are offered, so you cannot put a label column such as a tail number on a number card.
Breakdown or bar chart?#
They take the same two things and answer different questions. A bar chart is a ranking: it is good at "which aircraft flew most" and bad at "how much did N172TS bill", because reading a value off a bar is estimation. A breakdown carries the number on every row and uses length only for each row's share of the total.
A breakdown shows the top five rows and folds everything else into "Other", then prints the total underneath, so the rows you can see always add up to the figure below them.
Widget tiles#
Two tiles are not built from a report at all.
| Widget | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Up next | The next bookings on the schedule, today's first, for the next seven days |
| Needs attention | Everything overdue or unfinished, each row opening the rows behind it |
Click a booking on "Up next" and it opens exactly as it does on the schedule, so you can read it, edit it or cancel it without leaving the dashboard.
Because a widget has no report behind it, there is nothing for your roles to fail. A technician's board keeps both widgets even though every other default tile is dropped.
The comparison line on a time chart#
A line chart plotted over time draws the comparison period behind the current one, as a dashed line in the same colour as its series. The legend names the dates it is comparing against, for example "vs Jul 3, Aug 1".
Three rules decide whether you get one:
- The chart must be plotted over time. Comparing "the third busiest aircraft this month" against "the third busiest last month" would draw a line between two different aeroplanes, so charts grouped by anything else do not get one.
- The chart must have two metrics or fewer. Three metrics plus their comparisons is six lines on one axis. A third metric turns the comparison off rather than drawing it.
- The tile's comparison must not be "No comparison".
Hover any point to read the current value and the same day of the previous period together.
Move and resize tiles#
Click Customise
The sub-line under the heading changes to say that you can drag to move and pull the corner to resize, and that nothing is saved until you are done.
Drag a tile by its grip handle
The board is a 12 column grid, so tiles snap.
Pull a tile's corner to resize it
Each shape has a minimum size. A line chart cannot be dragged down to a single cell, because at that size it says nothing.
Click Done
Or "Cancel" to throw the changes away.
Add a tile#
Click Customise, then Add tile
"Add tile" only appears in the toolbar once the board is in edit mode, so click "Customise" first.
Pick a report
The picker only lists reports your roles let you run. Skip this if you are adding a widget.
Pick a shape
Choosing "Widget" replaces the rest of the form with a list of the built-in widgets, because a widget has no report, no metric and no date range to choose.
Tick the metrics, and pick a dimension where the shape needs one
The dimension is what the chart plots along its axis, or what a breakdown splits by.
Optionally add filters, a title, its own date range and its own comparison
Click Add tile, then Done
The tile lands at the bottom of the board. It is not saved until you press Done.
Give a tile its own date range#
A tile's range and comparison both default to "inherit", meaning they follow the selects at the top of the page.
Override the range in the Add tile or Edit tile dialog and the tile carries "· pinned" under its title, so a board of mixed windows is readable. This is how "Revenue this week" and "Revenue this month" can sit side by side and both be right. A comparison override carries no marker.
Pin a saved view from a report#
If you have already shaped a report and saved it, you do not have to rebuild it here.
Open the report and click Saved views
Click the pin icon on the view's row
The "Pin to dashboard" dialog opens with a suggested shape and metrics already chosen.
Click Pin tile
The success toast offers "View" to jump straight to the board.
The shape is guessed from the view: grouped by day gives a line chart, grouped by anything else gives a bar chart, and ungrouped gives a single number.
Two more things about pinning. A report with no column that can be totalled shows no pin icon at all, because there is nothing for a tile to display. And a saved view's dates are dropped when pinned: the tile follows the dashboard's window instead, unless you pick a range for the tile in the pin dialog.
Anyone can pin any view they can see. The tile is their own copy on their own board.
Edit or remove a tile#
In edit mode, each tile carries a menu. "Edit" reopens the same dialog you built it in; "Remove" deletes it. Neither is saved until you press Done.
Removing a widget is allowed, and you can add it back later from "Add tile" by choosing the Widget shape.
Reset to the default layout#
"Reset" in the header puts the board back to the fourteen default tiles.
Leaving without saving#
Cancel discards everything since you clicked Customise. Navigating away with unsaved edits prompts you. Neither one can lose a tile you had previously saved with Done.
Limits, phones, and tiles that disappear#
A panel holds up to 40 tiles, and there can be up to 10 panels, though today there is only ever one.
On a phone the board becomes a single column, in reading order, top to bottom and then left to right. Only the full width layout is saved, so rearranging on a laptop is what your phone follows.
Two consequences worth knowing:
- A technician's default board is the two widgets and nothing else. Every other default tile is built on Revenue, Utilization or Cancellations, and a technician's roles grant only the Fleet category. Add your own tiles from Fleet, Squawks and downtime, and Maintenance due.
- A number card shows no percentage change when the previous period was zero. Going from 0 to 40 is not a meaningful percentage, so the card says nothing rather than printing one. Where a comparison ran but produced no baseline, the card reads "No comparison".
Next#
The widget, and why its counts ignore your date range.
The thing you pin.
Still stuck on this?
Email support@aerscheduler.com and tell us what you were trying to do. We answer.