Build an analytics dashboard

A dashboard is one of the fastest ways to make an app feel valuable: it takes data you already have and turns it into answers. It's also the easiest screen to overbuild, so it rewards starting small.

Decide what it should answer

Before you prompt, write down the two or three questions the dashboard exists to answer. A page full of charts nobody reads is worse than three clear numbers. Good questions sound like "How many orders came in this week?" or "Which products are selling fastest?"

Keep the first version small. Adding a card later is one sentence; untangling a cluttered dashboard is several.

Prompt for the layout

Describe the dashboard in one prompt and be specific about the top-line metrics.

Add a dashboard page with metric cards for total orders, revenue this month and active customers, plus a line chart of orders per day for the last 30 days.

Vorx generates the page and wires it to your data, and the preview updates so you can see the real layout immediately.

Group the numbers that belong together

Strong dashboards are scannable. Ask for the page to be organised so related figures sit together and the most important number leads.

• Headline metric cards in a row across the top
• Trend charts grouped below the cards
• Detailed tables at the bottom for people who want to dig in
• Plain labels like "Revenue this month" rather than jargon

If something feels cramped, say so: "space the cards out and make the revenue card larger." For a nudge to one element, point at it in the preview's visual mode instead of describing which card you meant.

Add filters and date ranges

A dashboard becomes far more useful when people can narrow it.

Add a date range picker and a filter by product category that updates every card and chart on the page.

Because data is local, filter changes apply instantly, so people explore instead of waiting. Show the active range on the page — a number without its period is a number two people will read differently.

Check the numbers before anyone trusts them

Seed a few dozen records so the charts show realistic shapes, then verify one figure by hand: filter the underlying table to the same period and count. Dashboards get believed, which is exactly why a wrong one is expensive.

Be explicit about what each metric includes, too. "Active customers" means nothing until you say whether that's anyone who has ever ordered or anyone who ordered this month.

Make it live

When the totals hold up, publish and share the URL. Every published app also gets traffic analytics of its own under Settings → Analytics — visitors, top pages and sources — which answers a different question from your dashboard: not what the business is doing, but whether anyone is actually opening the app you built.

Once the basics are solid, ask for the refinement that makes a dashboard habitual: "add a compare-to-last-period toggle on each metric card."

In the docs: Analytics and Your data model.