Skip navigation
All Places > GIS > Applications > Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS > Blog
1 2 3 Previous Next

Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS

32 posts

A couple of useful videos on Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS are now available online:


1. What's New in Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS

https://bit.ly/2rJe84F

 

2. Operations Dashboard Tip and Tricks

https://bit.ly/2rJkxNe


Enjoy,

Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS enables you to easily create dashboards that enable you to present your data in a single screen for at-a-glance decision making, without writing any code. Each day stunning new dashboards are being shared on Twitter, LinkedIn, and ArcGIS Online that might inspire you to make your own dashboards better.

 

Dashboard Envy

Ever see an awesome dashboard and wondered, "How did they make that?" 
(The following are some jaw-droppers that were put together by Esri staff)

 

Sample Dashboards

 

Maybe it is an impressive chart, a sophisticated indicator, or a background color scheme. You just need to know how they did it. Well now you can find out!

 

By opening a dashboard in edit mode you are able to edit the elements and see how they are configured. So, now it is a matter of copying that inspirational dashboard and opening it in edit mode. In most cases, you can create a copy of the dashboard (see below for caveats), whether it is publicly shared or shared within your organization. 

 

Here's how:

  1. Sign in to your ArcGIS Online/Enterprise account and go to the Operations Dashboard home page via the App Launcher. Or, enter the following address directly:
    https://yourOrg.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/home

    Note: You technically don't need to have "yourOrg.maps." in the URL. It will work without it (https://arcgis.com/...).

  2. Click the Create Dashboard button. It will route you to:
    https://yourOrg.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/new
  3. Copy the item ID of the dashboard you'd like to save a copy of, such as the following:
    https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/9ef296f66f724c36bcaf01fc69768ecd 
  4. Add ?id=itemID to the Create Dashboard URL and press enter (to reload the page)
    https://yourOrg.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/new?id=9ef296f66f724c36bcaf01fc69768ecd
  5. The page will load with the Title, Tags and Summary already filled in with the dashboard you are copying

  6. Click the Create Dashboard button. It will open the copied dashboard in edit mode, and you can now start exploring how the dashboard was made (e.g., open the configuration of elements).

 

The Fine Print

  • Make sure to respect the original author's terms of use and give credit where credit is due.
  • Copying a dashboard does not create a copy of the webmap(s) or layer(s) used. If they stop sharing the underlying webmap(s) and/or layer(s), your dashboard will no longer work.
  • When a dashboard is created, by default it can be copied.

 

How To Prevent Copying of a Dashboard

You might be reading this and thinking, what if I don't want people to copy my dashboard. You can prevent others from copying the dashboard by going to its Item Details page in ArcGIS Online. Go to the Settings tab, uncheck the property for "Allow other to save a copy of this item." and click Save.

 

If others try to create a copy, they will get an error message.

"Error: The item is copy protected."

 

That's a wrap. Now go make that sweet Gauge or Serial Chart you've been dreaming up. You can also check out trending dashboards for more inspiration.

Setting the Stage

In winter months, many cities are struck with extreme snowstorm events that can leave people stranded for hours or even days. Operations managers need to monitor snow event responses and determine which streets are not getting attention.

 

Using Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS let’s create a dashboard that can be used to see the condition of the streets, status of the snow removal operations, and snow-related complaints that have been reported. We’ve used GeoEvent Server to bring the following data feeds into ArcGIS Online:

  • Locations of plow trucks
  • The status of the main streets based on recent passes from plows
  • Snow-related complaints that have been reported

Plows, Street Status, Complaints

 

What is a Dashboard?

Simply put, a dashboard is an item in ArcGIS Online (and soon ArcGIS Enterprise). Using Operations Dashboard, you can configure a simple or advanced web app to visualize your data for at-a-glance decision making. See our documentation page for more details.

“A dashboard is a view of geographic information that helps you monitor events or activities. Dashboards are designed to display multiple visualizations that work together on a single screen. They offer a comprehensive and engaging view of your data, to provide key insights for at-a-glance decision making.”

 

Designing Your Dashboard

Often, the best first step in designing a dashboard is to come up with a list of questions that the end user(s) would like it to answer at-a-glance. The following questions are applicable to our scenario.

  1. How many current complaints are there?
  2. How many streets have been plowed?
  3. Which plow was at the site of a broken mailbox complaint and when?
  4. Where is a particular truck, and how fast is it going? 

 

Next, determine how the dashboard will be viewed. Will it be unattended (e.g., on a wall-mounted screen) or interactive (e.g., used on a desktop or tablet)? If unattended, then all information should be accessible without clicking anything. If interactive, we can take advantage of stacking elements and interactive filtering. OK, let’s build an interactive dashboard.

 

Creating Your Dashboard

When signed into your ArcGIS Online organization, on the Content page you can create a dashboard from the Create button. You can also click the App Launcher next to your user name in the header to open the home page of Operations Dashboard.

 

For this exercise, we’ll create it directly from a webmap.

  1. Open the Real-Time Snowplow Map
  2. In the upper right, sign in to your ArcGIS Online account.

    Note: Non-organizational public accounts and Level 1 accounts do not support creating dashboards. You need to be a Level 2 account in your organization.

  3. Consider the theme you'd like to use (dark or light) and the colors of your dashboard. The symbology and basemap in this webmap were specifically chosen to support a light themed Dashboard. If you would like to customize the map, do a Save As to create a copy. Otherwise continue to the next step.

    Tip: Your basemap, symbology and the rest of the dashboard elements should complement each other. Bright colors should be used to draw the viewer’s eyes to important things, such as the vehicles and complaints.

  4. Create a dashboard that includes this map. Click the Share button on the toolbar.
  5. Click Create a Web App.
  6. Choose the Operations Dashboard tab.
  7. Fill in your title and press Done.

 

Adding Elements to the Dashboard

Now that you are editing your dashboard, let's add some elements to it. Elements include data visualizations such as maps, lists, charts, gauges, and indicators. It is important that you carefully consider which elements best display the information you want.

 

Indicator

In the Designing Your Dashboard section above, we said that we’d like to show how many complaints have been reported. Let’s do this with an Indicator.

  1. From the + menu in the navigation panel, choose Indicator.

  2. Choose the Complaints layer as the data source.
  3. By default, it displays a count statistic, which is what we want (the number of complaints/features).

  4. Let’s add some text to the number displayed. Click the Indicator tab.

  5. In the Middle Text input, add the text “ Complaints” making the full text read “{value} Complaints”

  6. Add an icon by clicking the Left button for the Icon property and choosing an icon.

    Tip: It is a best practice to give each element a name. Go to the General tab and update the Name property. Names are used later when you wire up actions. I'll be skipping this step in this post for simplicity.

  7. Click Done on the footer to add the Indicator to the dashboard.

 

Serial Chart

Let’s add a bar chart showing the number of complaints per type. The Serial Chart is used to create bar charts, line charts, area charts, and combinations of these.

  1. From the + menu in the navigation panel, choose Serial Chart.
  2. Choose the Complaints layer as the data source.
  3. By default, it generates categories from Grouped Values, which is what we want in this case.

    Tip: There are ways to create categories with data in other formats. Read the help page for more details.

  4. For the Category Field property, choose Description.
  5. Keep the Statistic type as Count. It shows the number of each type of complaint.
  6. Since the category labels are longer, we’ll want to adjust them so they don’t collide. Going to the Category Axis For the Placement property, choose Staggered.
  7. To change the color of the bars, go to the Series tab and change the Color
  8. Press Done to add the Serial Chart to the dashboard.

 

List

We can also show a List of the complaints.

  1. From the + menu in the navigation panel, choose List.
  2. Choose the Complaints layer as the data source.
  3. In the List tab, add some text to the Line Item Text
  4. Click the {} dropdown and choose the Description field.
  5. Press Done to add the List to the dashboard.

 

Rearrange the Layout

Now that we have four elements on the dashboard, let’s move them around. Hovering over an element, move your mouse over the blue box in the upper left of the element. In the expanded menu is a drag button. Click and hold this button to move it.

While dragging the element, icons appear at locations where you can dock the element. For more details, read this overview.

 

Reposition the elements to resemble the following.

 

The Dashboard Theme

If you prefer, you can change the theme to Dark Theme using the … button in the navigation panel. 

Tip: If you'd like to edit your basemap after changing themes, open your webmap using the Home button in the upper left of the navigation panel and edit it. Consider using one of Esri's excellent vector basemaps.

Here is an example of the dashboard in dark theme using a another version of the webmap, colored to compliment the dark colors of the dashboard.

 

Map Tools

You can add map tools, such as zoom controls and a legend, by expanding the blue menu in the upper left of the map element and clicking the Configure button. Turn On the following map tools: Default Extent and Bookmarks and Zoom In/Out.

 

Add More Elements to the Dashboard

Let's continue adding some visual elements to the dashboard.

 

Pie Chart

A question that users of this dashboard may have is the status of the snow removal operations. We can visualize this with a Pie Chart.

  1. From the + menu in the navigation panel, choose Pie Chart.
  2. Choose the Streets Plowed Status layer as the data source.
  3. Keep the Categories From property on Grouped Values.
  4. For the Category Field property, choose PlowedStatus. Each street can have a status of “Plowed”, “Not Plowed”, or “In Progress”.
  5. If we had a field with the length of each street, we would change the Statistic to Sum the lengths. However, in this case, we’ll leave it to show the count of streets by status.
  6. In the Slices tab, you can define colors for each category.

    Note: At the time you create this dashboard, there may only be one PlowedStatus category. You can add the other categories manually by clicking the + Category button and entering the other values.

  7. Click Done in the footer to add the Pie Chart to the dashboard.
  8. Reposition it in the dashboard as shown below.

 

Gauge

We can also show the average speed of the plow trucks. Let’s add a Gauge.

  1. From the + menu in the navigation panel, choose Gauge.
  2. Choose the Plows layer as the data source.
  3. Change the Statistic property to Average and select the speed.
  4. Under the Gauge tab, choose Meter.

    NOTE: More details about the two types of gauges can be found here.

  5. Under the General tab, in the Title input, enter “Truck Speed” and make it center justified.

    Tip: Under the Gauge tab and Guides section, click + Guide to add a color band to the gauge. Define the range with either a value or a percentage. Guides can be used to indicate ranges that are OK and dangerous.

  6. Click Done in the footer to add the Gauge to the dashboard.
  7. Reposition it in the dashboard as shown below.

 

Add a Header and Title

The title you see on the top of the dashboard is only visible to you, because you are in edit mode. Let’s add a Header with a title for our users.

  1. From the + menu in the navigation panel, choose Header.
  2. In the Title property, enter “Real-Time Snow Removal Operations”.
  3. Turn off the Header Margin
  4. Click Done in the footer to add the Header to the dashboard.

 

Add Interactivity

Let’s add some interactivity to this dashboard. 

 

Zoom Action

It would be nice to zoom the map to a complaint when one is clicked in the list.

  1. Expand the menu in the upper left of the List and choose Configure Actions.
  2. When a selection is made or changes, you want to zoom the map to the feature. From the Add Action menu, choose Zoom.
  3. From the Add Target menu, choose your map.
  4. We can also flash the feature on the map. Add a Flash action and again target your map.
  5. Click Done in the footer and test out the interaction.

 

Filter to a Single Truck

We can also add a dropdown to our header that allows the user to filter the map to display only one truck at a time. This is done by adding a Selector.

  1. Expand the menu in the upper left of the Header.
  2. Choose Add Category Selector.
  3. In the Title input, enter “Truck Filter”.
  4. For the Categories From property choose Features.
  5. Choose the Plows
  6. To the right of the Sort By property, click + Sort. Choose vehiclename and Ascending.
  7. In the Line Item Text input, using the {} dropdown add “{vehiclename}”.
  8. Turn On the None Option.
  9. In the Actions tab, add a Filter action from the Add Action menu.
  10. In the Add Target menu indented under the map, choose the Plows layer and Tracks layer. Also add the gauge Gauge (1).
  11. Under the Tracks layer properties, choose vehiclename for both the source field and target field.
  12. Also add a Pan action from the Add Action menu.
  13. Choose your map from the Add Target menu. It should look like the following.
  14. Click Done in the footer to add the selector.
  15. Interact with the selector to filter the Plows layer and Tracks layer on the map as well as the gauge.

Trim Vehicle Tracks to a Time Window

Showing all the tracks isn’t always helpful. Let’s add another Date Selector that lets the user trim the vehicle tracks to various time windows.

  1. Expand the menu in the upper left of the Header.
  2. Choose Add Date Selector.
  3. In the Title input, enter “Vehicle Tracks for Last”.
  4. Under the Defined Categories section, for the Display Type property choose Button Bar.
  5. Under the Display Type property, click the + Add
  6. In the Enter Display Name property, enter “1 minute”.
  7. Click the Select an operator dropdown and choose is within the last.
  8. Leave the value as 1. Click the units dropdown and change it from days to minutes.
  9. Repeat steps 5 through 8 for “5 minutes”, “30 minutes”, and “1 hour”.
  10. In the Actions tab, add a Filter action from the Add Action
  11. In the Add Target menu indented under the map, choose the Tracks
  12. Under the Tracks layer properties, choose time for the Target Field. It should look like the following.

  13. Click Done in the footer to add the selector.
  14. Move the Date Selector left by hovering over it and expanding the menu on the right.
  15. Interact with the selector to filter the Tracks layer on the map.

 

Conclusion

You did it! You created an impressive real-time dashboard with Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS. Feel free to customize the colors and aesthetics some more. Your dashboard should look similar to this live sample.

 

From the dashboard users can easily answer the questions we discussed at the beginning:

  1. How many current complaints are there?
        Hint: See the Indicator and Serial Chart.
  2. How many streets have been plowed?
        Hint: See the Pie Chart.
  3. Which plow was at the site of a broken mailbox complaint and when?
        Hint: Click a complaint in the list to zoom the map to it. Click on the vehicle tracks in the map to see which plow recently went by there.
  4. Where is a particular truck, and how fast is it going? 
        Hint: In the Header, choose a truck from the Selector dropdown.

 

Share It

Now, share it with colleagues or friends to show off your amazing work!

  1. In the upper left of the navigation panel, click Home, then Dashboard Item Details.
  2. Share the dashboard with a group, your organization, or the public.
  3. If you saved a copy of the map, you will need to share it as well. Back in the dashboard, from the Home menu you can open the webmap and share it.

Back in December 2018 we released the following sample dashboard related to local law enforcement.

 

Crime dashboard using selectors

 

We leveraged selectors that enabled the end user to easily filter down the dashboard to a specific time window, police division and/or crime type. With the latest April 2018 update to Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS, we’ve added the ability to drive actions from selections on charts. 

 

The following dashboard contains charts that summarize crimes by date, division, and type. The charts are configured so that when a selection is made, they apply a filter action to the layer in the map and to each of the other charts. Charts can be configured to allow end users to make single or multiple selections at once. For example, on the date-based serial chart, you can click and drag to select a range of time.

 

Dashboard using chart supporting selections

 

By making a few selections on the charts, we can filter the dashboard to show burglaries that have occurred today in the central police division.  

 

Dashboard using chart supporting selections

 

You will also notice several other new features in this dashboard: a search map tool, a scale bar, custom text when there is no data, and an icon in the header. Try the dashboard yourself: Philadelphia Crime Dashboard - Featuring Selection on Charts.

 

We are excited to see how you utilize these new capabilities in your own dashboards. 

 

If you are new to Operations Dashboard, here are a couple links to get you started:

FYI: Elleni Rogers from Esri UK recently published another great blog post that discusses the new enhancements that were added to Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS in the ArcGIS Online April 2018 update.

 

Bring your Operations Dashboard elements together with the new update — Esri UK 

 

 

Enjoy,

Operations Dashboard is a configurable web app that's included with the ArcGIS platform. Dashboard offers a comprehensive and engaging view of your data to provide key insight for at-a-glance decision making.

 

Following our initial launch inside ArcGIS Online in December 2017, and support with ArcGIS Enterprise 10.6 in January 2018, we are poised to release a new update in April 2018 with some exciting new capabilities.

 

While we are putting the finishing touches on this release, we'd like to preview the key new features that you can expect to see:

 

Selection on Charts

Dashboards are composed of elements such as maps, lists, gauges, indicators and charts that bring your data to life. Not only do the elements within your dashboard update when your data changes, providing an effective yet static decision support tool, but you can configure elements to communicate with one another to provide better understanding. 

 

With this release we are adding charts as a source of actions for both pie and serial charts. You can select a single data point, or multiple data points in your charts and have their selection trigger actions in other elements like maps or lists. 

 

 

Search Map Tool

Within the map element, you can now add a new Search Map tool. This allows the user of a Dashboard to find locations or search features on the map. Search capabilities are derived from the search settings configured in the web map that you create. The Search tool will expand/contract when you click on it so that you can maximize your use of the map. Likewise, if you would like to search based upon a layer or a specific location you can click the drop down to maximize your search results.

 

Embedded Content Element

The new Embedded Content element makes it easy to embed documents, images and video into your Dashboard. Embedded content can be static, in which case all you need to provide is the direct URL of the content you wish to display. If you want to embed weather information, a video from YouTube, or even a web scene or Survey form, simply enter the URL as a document.

 

Second, you can embed content from features. This means that each feature’s attribute information can be used to dynamically construct a URL at run time. When embedding from features, the embedded content can be the target of an action such as selection on a map or list. This is a great way to display content from external web pages that are based upon a common key, shared in a feature attribute (like images from CCTV cameras for example).

 

 

Scale bar on maps

Included with the map tools, you can now add a scale bar to your map. There are two styles: a ruler style or a line style. When you choose a style, the scale bar will appear in the bottom left corner of your map element.

 

 

Feature-mode for Gauges and Indicators

Until now, you could only configure a gauge or indicator using a statistic value such as an average or a sum. With this release, you can now drive the value type, as well as the minimum and maximum values directly from attributes of a feature.


 

Sharing Premium Content in Dashboards

ArcGIS comes with ready-to-use map layers that require an organizational subscription account to access. Some of your subscription content, premium content, will consume credits as well. You can include subscription content in your Dashboard, provide seamless access to it, and if needed, limit the number of requests it can receive to manage costs.

 

 

Switch Languages

Depending upon the region you are in, you may need to override the locale settings of your browser to display your Dashboard in a different language.

 

Now you can use a query parameter on the URL of the Dashboard to load it in the locale of your choice. By appending the two-letter language code to your Dashboard URL, you can load the Dashboard into the locale of your choice.

 

Default Language:

https://<portal>/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/4f539791b2f1418cb5403891f1a7be50

 

French Locale:

https://<portal>/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/4f539791b2f1418cb5403891f1a7be50?locale=fr

 

New SVG Icons

When adding an icon to your Indicator or Gauge, you will find that we have added over 100 new icons to the collection. Of course, you can continue to add your own icons as well. Also, now you can use an SVG icon as the logo within the Header element as well!

 

 

No Data Label

It is possible that your visualization may not have any data to display. It may be driven by an empty layer awaiting data to be added from field apps like Collector, or, it may be the destination of a selection within another element. If the element is void of any data, Dashboard would fill the empty space with a “No data” label. Now you can provide your own text that makes sense to your users and potentially gives direction on how to populate the element with data.

 

 

In addition to all the new features mentioned above, we slightly changed the configuration user experience as well. Actions are no longer a separate button from the rest of the configuration experience. They are now available in a unified configuration experience so that they are easier to find and manage.

 

We look forward to seeing the Dashboards that you create using our April release! If you would like to share your Dashboards with us, or provide feedback directly to our development team, please email Dashboard4ArcGIS@esri.com.

 

Thank you,

 

Dashboard Team

FYI,

 

This blog highlights events and activities related to Operations Dashboard at the 2018 Esri Developer Summit in Palm Springs. It also discusses the top 5 questions that were asked by attendees

 

Top 5 Questions about Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS & Esri Dev Summit report - ArcGIS Blog 

 

 

Enjoy,

FYI, great blog by Elleni Rogers from Esri UK that provides a nice overview of Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS.

 

Learn about: Operations Dashboard — Esri UK 

 

 

Enjoy,

FYI, we just published a new blog on Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS highlighting some great customer dashboard apps (over 20 examples) as well as a list of some useful resources to learn more about the app.

 

Some Example Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS Apps & Resources | ArcGIS Blog 

 

 

Enjoy,

Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS is a configurable web app that provides location-aware data visualization and analytics for a real-time operational view of people, services, assets, and events. The app is included with your ArcGIS Online organization and is also available for ArcGIS Enterprise 10.6.

 

I wanted to share 2 really interesting ArcGIS Platform user storie videos, where Ops Dashboard was heavily used to help support their business workflows.

 

1. Esri Case Study: National Police of Colombia - Leveraging the ArcGIS Platform

 

 

2. 7 News Boston: Crowd control a priority for Massachusetts State Police during Super Bowl LII

 

 

Enjoy,

Checkout this awesome blog by Gaëtan LAVENU from Esri France that showcases 15 dashboard apps built on Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS!! All with links to the live apps.

 

 

Operations Dashboard: 15 exemples pour vous inspirer ! - arcOrama 

 

Enjoy,

We are excited to announce that Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS is now available with ArcGIS Enterprise 10.6! from My Esri! 

 

You can download the "Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS 1.0" setup. It is located under My Organizations / Downloads / ArcGIS Enterprise 10.6 (Windows or Linux) / Apps. Alternatively, you can use the left navigation to go directly to Apps and search for Operations Dashboard 1.0.

 

A couple of important notes:

  1. This setup will only be available for ArcGIS Enterprise 10.6. We just didn't hit their code freeze date and had to ship separately. Moving forward, with ArcGIS Enterprise 10.6.1 and higher, a setup will not be required. Operations Dashboard will simply be included with ArcGIS Enterprise as it is today with ArcGIS Online.
  2. If you have been using the Operations Dashboard 10.3.4 for ArcGIS Deployment Utility to create Operations views using the Windows app inside of ArcGIS Enterprise 10.5.1, you can continue to do so. However, this utility is moving into a mature status and will not be included in the ArcGIS Enterprise 10.6 downloads. 

 

Dashboard team

FYI, the next generation Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS final release is now available as part of ArcGIS Online's December 2017 update!! Checkout the blog for more details,

 

What’s New in Operations Dashboard (December 2017) | ArcGIS Blog 

 

 

Enjoy,

With the latest release of Operations Dashboard, you can create and use dashboards on the web without downloading an authoring app. In 5 steps, we’ll have a dashboard that combines a map and some elements to get information out to the public. This particular dashboard is going to show reports of incidents occurring around Redlands, CA. Your dashboard will look like this once you finish: Redlands Incidents dashboard.

 

If you'd like to follow along while reading, go to my Redlands Earthquake Response (Blog) map, click Modify map, and save it as your own. This is similar to the map you create if you follow the Monitor Real-Time Emergencies lesson on Learn ArcGIS, although here I used a copy of the data that includes open and closed incidents.

 

  1. Create a dashboard.
    Log in to your ArcGIS organization and use the app switcher to go to Operations Dashboard.

    Click Create Dashboard. Provide a title (like "Redlands Incidents"), tags (like "incidents"), and a summary (like "Incidents in Redlands") and click Create Dashboard.
    If you don't see the Create Dashboard button, make sure you have the privilege to create content in your organization.
  2. Add elements.
    For this dashboard, we're going to have a map of where the incidents are happening, a list of the incidents, and a count of incidents. 

    We'll start with adding the map. Click Add, choose Map, and select the map you saved from my shared map. By default, the layers honor the refresh intervals from the map and are selectable.

    Add in some map tools, including Basemap and Layer Visibility, and click Done. The map is added to your dashboard.

    Use the Add button to add an Indicator that you’ll use for the incident count. Select the Reported Incidents - Dispatch layer. On the Indicator tab, set the middle text (where the value displays) to be green, and provide “incidents” as the bottom text. Click Done. The indicator is placed to the left of the map.

    Add a List and select the Reported Incidents - Dispatch layer. On the General tab, give it a title “Incidents” and on the List tab set the Line Item Text to have icon, type, and open date:

    On the Data tab, click Sort and sort descending on the Open Date.

    Click Done, and the list is placed to the left of the indicator.

  3. Set layout.
    While the elements we want are in place, they don’t look very good at all. Next, we’ll arrange the layout so that the list is below the indicator and the map gets most of the screen.

    Hover over the blue bar in the upper-left corner of the list to get its menu and choose Drag Item. Place the list under the indicator, and resize the list and indicator so the map gets most of the space. Then resize the indicator so that the list gets more space.

  4. Build interactivity.
    Sometimes we want to see all the incidents, but at other times only the open incidents are of interest. You can add a selector that lets you filter the dashboard to show all incidents, only open incidents, or only closed ones.

    Use the Add button to add a Header and click Done – that’s where we’ll place the selector. In the header, use the menu and choose Add Category Selector.

    Since we want to use an attribute value that applies across multiple incidents, set Categories From to Grouped Values and select the Reported Incidents – Dispatch layer. Set the Category Field to Operational Status.

    To show a button for each option, set Preferred Display Type to Button bar. To allow the user to show all incidents, enable None Option and set the Label for None to All.

    In the Actions tab, add a When Selection Changes action that filters the Reported Incidents – Dispatch layer. Add additional actions so that the filter is also applied to the list and indicator.

    Click Done.
  5. Save, test, and share.
    Save and try out your Dashboard, making sure the selector filters the map, list, and indicator. Then share it with those who need access. In this case, we want the public to see what is going on, so we’ll share publicly.

    Click Home and choose Dashboard Item Details to go to the item page for your newly created dashboard.

    On the right side of the page, click Share, enable Everyone (public), and click OK. If your map isn’t shared publicly yet, make sure to share it, too, or users will be prompted to sign in when they open the dashboard.

 

You've now created an interactive dashboard that lets the community see the current incidents. Think about the kinds of dashboards you could build for your organization, and get started with your own dashboards.
  

With the December 6th update to ArcGIS Online, the completely new, web-centric experience for Operations Dashboard is out of beta and released! Let’s look at some of the stunning, interactive dashboards that have been built with it, and some tips for using them. Click the image of a dashboard to open a shared version you can take for a test drive.

 

Snow Plow Dashboard

The Snow plow dashboard monitors snow plowing: what streets are plowed, where trucks are, have been, and are going, and complaints about the plowing efforts. Using the dashboard, you can restrict the truck tracks in the dashboard to time intervals, such as the last 5 minutes or last hour, as well as to a particular plow. All this can be used to inform decisions about what happens next.

 

Use this dashboard to answer questions like:

  • How many current complaints are there?
    Hint: Read the text.
  • What percentage of roads have been plowed?
    Hint: Hover over the “plowed” section of the “Status of Streets” chart.
  • Where is Truck2, and how fast is it going?
    Hint: Select Truck2 in the drop-down list in the upper-right corner.
  • What mailbox was recently hit?
    Hint: Click the compliant to center the map on it.
  • Are there areas that haven’t been visited in the last hour?
    Hint: Show the tracks of all trucks over the last hour.

 

Water Quality Dashboard


The Water Quality dashboard shows the current water quality as reported by sensors at various locations. It includes detailed mercury, E. coli, and enterococcus bacteria levels, as well as ratings of OK, Advisory, and Unknown for each sensor. This information provides an understanding of the water quality for the region.


Use this dashboard to answer questions like:

  • What is the water quality in my county?
    Hint: Expand the left-hand panel and choose your county.
  • What sites currently have mercury levels of .2 or higher?
    Hint: Expand the left-hand panel and restrict mercury level to .2 and higher.
  • How many creeks have advisory water quality?
    Hint: Expand the left panel and restrict the Site Type to Creek and the Status to Advisory.

 

General tips for using dashboards

The exact functionality of a dashboard is up to the author: they can add elements and actions to present the information they need to communicate. However, there are some things common to using the features when they are enabled:

  • Hover over sections in a chart to see details.
  • Select entries in lists. Authors can configure various actions to occur, such as zooming to them or filtering other elements.
  • Use selectors in the left panel or header to choose subsets of the data that you want to focus on. When the left panel is collapsed, you can show it by clicking on the expand arrow in the middle of the left edge of the dashboard. Once shown, you can pin it to easily toggle values.
  • Use Select to take configured actions with selected features, including flashing them or using them to filter other elements.
  • Elements can be stacked, and you’ll use tabs to view the different elements.
  • Use the full screen to view an element in detail by clicking Expand. Clicking it when full-screen returns you to the full dashboard.
  • Return to the default extent of the map by clicking Home.
  • Access more information through the header: the logo can be linked to a website, or links can be added to a menu in the upper-right corner. If a help link was provided for the dashboard, it is accessible through the menu.
1 2 3 Previous Next