QuickBase
link icon. Within the Select link type menu that displays,
select one of the following three types:A Dashboard page can feature different kinds of information. Start with a description and basic information about your application. You could also display a report of your application data, including a chart or timeline. Add a fully formatted text section, complete with hyperlinks and pretty fonts. Each type of information lives in its own section. You can include as many as six sections on the Dashboard page (and up to three of them can be reports). To see an example of a custom Dashboard page, click here.
Tip: Creating and embedding a report that shows the current user's open tasks or upcoming appointments is a terrific customization that delivers exactly those records that users want to see when they first open your application. To do so, create a new report. In the Filtering section, select the user field (like "Assigned to") and in the next dropdown, select Is current user. Save this report and embed it on your application's Dashboard page. Each person who opens your application will see a highly personalized and relevant Dashboard.
To access the customization controls discussed here, first create or edit a Dashboard page. The Edit Dashboard screen is designed to mimic the layout of your Dashboard page. A control for a particular element occupies the same real estate that the actual display element does on the Dashboard page. When customizing a Dashboard page, you can:
Let people know where they are and what they're looking at. In the Heading box, type a descriptive title for the page like "May Projects Dashboard" or "Widget Sales Application Dashboard". The heading will appear in blue at the top left of the Dashboard page, underneath the menu bar.
The top right of your Dashboard page can include customized buttons that open text pages (like a policy document, for example) or lead viewers to reports and records in your application. You can add a button and customize its text and destination.
Within the Buttons section on the upper right, click
Add New. A button appears. Inside the button, click the
QuickBase
link icon. Within the Select link type menu that displays,
select one of the following three types:
Add. Select add and QuickBase displays a submenu of tables in your application. Select a table, like Tasks for example and the button will be an Add Task button. When a user clicks on it, QuickBase will open the Add Tasks form.
Go to page. If you've saved a Text page within your application, you can link to it with a button. You can even link to another Dashboard page. To do so, select Go to page and then choose the page you want to link to.
Show report. Click this option and QuickBase displays a list of all the reports in your application. Select any one of them as the destination for your button.
All buttons are untitled at birth. To name the button, click the text that says untitled and the program displays it in a text box. Replace this text with a description of the button's function and/or destination.
Information sections display your application's description. (To enter a description, select Customize > Application Properties and type a paragraph or two in the Description box.) To add an information section, click the Add a new section button and select Info/Description from the menu that appears.
If you want, you can include an application's statistics (who the manager is, what account owns it, etc...) in this section too. To do so, turn on the Include Application Statistics checkbox.
Use a text section to share more extensive information. For example, make an announcement to your team or provide important news (view an example). QuickBase lets you use HTML in these sections to enhance your text. Use HTML, if you want to add hyperlinks or pictures. The beauty is that you don't need to be a coding maven to do so. Just use the HTML editor QuickBase provides.
To add a text section, click the Add a new section button and select Text from the menu that appears. The section transforms into an area that lets you add, edit and format text. This is actually an HTML editor. If you're a Web programmer, hit the HTML button on the upper right of the editing pane and compose or paste in whatever HTML code you want to use. If you're a mere mortal, just start typing and formatting as you would in any word-processing program. QuickBase takes your creation and (behind the scenes) turns it into HTML.
Tip: If you want to enlarge
your work area, just click the 
Maximize
button on the HTML editor's toolbar. The editor fills your screen. Click
Minimize to return the editor to the Edit Dashboard screen.
The HTML editor lets you add two kinds of hyperlinks:
Link to a Web site.
Type some text (like "click here"), then highlight it and
click the 
Insert Web Link button. An Insert Link
dialog box opens. Type in the URL of the destination Web site. This
needs to be the full Web address, including http and so on.
In the Title box, type in the text that you want
QuickBase to display when a viewer passes their mouse over the link.
If you want the link to open the destination page in a new instance
of the browser, click the Target dropdown and select
New Window (blank).
Link to a page in your application.
Type some text (like "add a task"), then select the text
and click the QuickBase Link button. The choices
that appear are the same ones you read about in the add
buttons section.
Provide your users with quick access to important information by embedding data reports on the Dashboard page. To do so, click the Add a new section button and select report from the menu that appears. A new report section appears. In the enter a subheading text box, type in the heading you want to display in the blue bar above the report. If you don't type anything, QuickBase automatically uses the name of the report you're about to select. Speaking of which... next, click the report dropdown and select the application report that you want to display. Then set the following display options:
How much information do you want to share? ...and how much Dashboard real estate do you want to give to this report? Type in the number of records that you want this report to display on your Dashboard page by typing the number in the Rows to display box. The larger the number, the more room your report takes up on the Dashboard page. To display the entire report (all rows), enter 0. If the report contains more than the number of rows you specify, QuickBase displays a more... link that users can click to see all the data in the report.
If you want to display an Edit button (
or 
) next to each entry in the embedded report,
turn on the Include "edit" button checkbox.
If you want to display a View button (
or 
) next to each entry in the embedded report,
turn on the Include "display" button checkbox
By default, the left column
of a new Dashboard contains a list of reports available in the application
(like this one). For trial users this
area defaults to the QuickBase Get Started content instead. This content
displays two panes: Your Progress shows steps to successfully create an
application, and Trial Resources shows helpful resource links to learn
more about QuickBase. (Note that the Your Progress pane displays only
if the user viewing that Dashboard has permissions to create applications.)
If you'd like to override the default or change the left-column display,
click the Left Column drop-down list, and select one
of Hide, Show All Reports, or Show
Get Started.
Note that the reports that appear on the Reports pane vary according to user role. That is, if a user in a Viewer role (for example) is not allowed to see a particular report, the Reports pane will not contain that report when the Dashboard appears. Learn about controlling access to reports.
If you don't like where you've placed a section, just move it. To do
so, pass your mouse over the blue section heading. When your mouse turns
into a 
four-way arrow, click and drag the section to
its new spot. As you do so, QuickBase displays two blue arrows, which
follow your movements to show you where the program will place the section.
When they're pointing to where you want to drop the section, release the
mouse button (see an
illustration).
If a section's not working out, click the X in its upper right corner to delete it.
