Dashboards

In NeoDash, a dashboard consists of several pages, each of which can consist of multiple reports.

Dashboard

As an example: The screenshot above shows a dashboard with three pages: Breweries, Beer Ratings and Styles. The dashboard title My Beer Database Dashboard 🍺 is displayed on the top of the window.

The first page is selected, and contains three reports, a table, a graph and a map. Each report can be given their own name, and has exactly one Cypher query used to populate the report. See Reports for more info on how reports work.

Dashboard Management

After startup up NeoDash, you will be given the choice to create a new dashboard or open an existing one (if available). After being connected, the buttons on the sidebar can be used to save, load or share a dashboard.

Save/Load/Share Button

Save a Dashboard

A NeoDash dashboard is, simply put, a JSON file. As an example, the default dashboard has the following structure:

{
  "title": "",
  "version": "2.0",
  "settings": {
    "pagenumber": 0,
    "editable": true,
    "fullscreenEnabled": true,
    "parameters": {}
  },
  "pages": [
    {
      "title": "Main Page",
      "reports": [
        {
          "title": "Hi there 👋",
          "query": "**This is your first dashboard!** \n \nYou can click (⋮) to edit this report, or add a new report to get started. You can run any Cypher query directly from each report and render data in a variety of formats. \n \nTip: try _renaming_ this report by editing the title text. You can also edit the dashboard header at the top of the screen.\n\n\n",
          "width": 3,
          "type": "text",
          "height": 3,
          "selection": {},
          "settings": {}
        },
        {
          "title": "",
          "query": "MATCH (n)-[e]->(m) RETURN n,e,m LIMIT 20\n\n\n",
          "width": 3,
          "type": "graph",
          "height": 3,
          "selection": {
            "Movie": "title",
            "Genre": "name"
          },
          "settings": {
            "nodePositions": {}
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

After opening the save dialog, there are three options for saving your dashboard:

  1. Save as a file. This triggers a download of the current dashboard as .json file.

  2. Save inside Neo4j. This stores a stringified representation of the dashboard as a node in the database. When using Neo4j multi-database, you will be given the choice of which database to save the dashboard in.

  3. Copy-paste the JSON file directly.

Keep in mind that your currently active dashboard is stored in the browser cache. If you clear your cache (cookies), the dashboard is gone.

Load a Dashboard

Just like in the save screen, a dashboard can be loaded in one of three ways:

  1. Load from a file. This requires you to select a .json somewhere on your computer.

  2. Load from Neo4j. This requires you to select a dashboard node stored in the database. When loading from Neo4j, you will be presented with the list of dashboards in reverse chronological order.

  3. Loading a JSON file by pasting it directly into the editor.

Share a Dashboard

A dashboard can be shared with other users by generating a direct link to it. This link will contain:

  • A link to the dashboard (either a direct URL or the name of the dashboard inside Neo4j).

  • (Optionally), the credentials of the database that the dashboard is reporting on. Be warned, when using this feature, the share link will contain the database credentials, which can be a security risk.

  • If the dashboard should be viewed in `editor mode', or `standalone mode'. The latter configures neodash to run in a stripped down UI without any of the editor features enabled.

When creating a NeoDash deployment on a production database, it is not recommended to use the `Share' feature. Rather, set up a dedicated standalone deployment of NeoDash. See Publishing for more infomation.

Dashboard Settings

Settings for the entire dashboard can be accessed by clicking the Settings ⚙️ button in the dashboard sidebar.

Dashboard Settings

This window can be used to control the followng settings:

Name Changeable Default Value Description

Editable

Yes

on

If enabled, show the dashboard in `editing mode'. If not, show it in `view mode'. In view mode, all editing is disabled, pages and reports can not be moved, edited or renamed.

Enable Fullscreen Report Views

Yes

on

If enabled, show the 🔳 Fullscreen button on the top-right of a report, letting users maximize a visualization.

Maximum Query Time (seconds)

Yes

20

The maximum time is a query is allowed to take before being cancelled automatically. Increase this if you have complex analytical queries.

Disable Row Limiting

Yes

off

If enabled, the automatic row limiting feature of dashboards is disabled.

Page Number

No

0

The current page number of the dashboard being viewed. This can only be changed by switching pages in the dashboard header.

Global Parameters

No

{}

The global parameters that are shared among all reports in the dashboard. See the next section for more on global parameters.

Parameters

Dashboard parameters are key-value pairs that can be used inside the queries of reports. A convention is that a dashboard parameter in NeoDash will always start with $neodash_.

Parameters can only be set (and unset) using the Parameter Select reports. After setting a parameter, it will be available to all reports in the dashboard. A query that uses a dashboard parameter will look like this:

MATCH (m:Movie)<-[a:ACTED_IN]-(p:Person)
WHERE m.title = $neodash_movie_title
RETURN m, a, p

Deep-Linking Parameters

For browser-based NeoDash deployments, you set NeoDash parameters by means of URL parameters. For example, when a user visits the following URL:

https://neodash.graphapp.io/?neodash_person_name=Adam

This will set the parameter $neodash_person_name to Adam after loading the dashboard.