Klips: Learning with sample dashboards

New to Klip dashboard building and not sure where to begin? Our pre-built sample dashboards are a great starting point. Look to them for inspiration only or dig deeper with a behind-the-scenes look at how Klips are constructed. When you’re ready, connect sample Klips to your own data and create your own custom dashboards!

This article includes:

• Our sample dashboards
• How do I add a sample dashboard?
• How do I view Klip configuration settings?
  • The Klip Editor: Intro, tips, and examples
• How do I modify a sample Klip to display my company’s data?

Note: If you're a White-Label customer, you'll find links to access pre-built dashboards in this article.

Our sample dashboards

We’re sure you’ll find at least one dashboard (or maybe more) that suits your unique needs.

Klips includes the following sample dashboards:

• Executive Dashboard
• Lead Funnel Dashboard
• Sales Dashboard
• Bar and Line Chart Visualizations
• Pie Chart and Gauge Visualizations
• Sparkline, Value, and Pictograph Visualizations
• Table Visualizations

Note: In addition to the sample dashboards described in this article, Klipfolio Klips includes several pre-built service-based dashboards that can also be connected to your personal business data. Learn more about those dashboards here.

Executive Dashboard

An executive dashboard arms business leaders with the information they need to make fast, informed decisions.

Our sample executive dashboard includes the following Klips (click the name of each Klip for a detailed description):

Lead Funnel Dashboard

A great tool for assessing the impact of your sales and marketing strategies, the lead funnel dashboard includes the following Klips (click the name of each Klip for a detailed description):

Sales Dashboard

Our sample sales dashboard focuses on conversion, retention, and expansion rate, all essential KPIs for monitoring success, particularly for SaaS companies.

This dashboard includes the following Klips (click the name of each Klip for a detailed description):

Bar and Line Chart Visualizations

Bar charts are great for comparing two or more related values. Line charts excel at showing data trends and patterns.

This dashboard includes the following Klips:

• A line/area chart (sample 1) with multiple series.
• A stacked column chart (sample 2) that visually aggregates all categories into groups and shows positive and negative values.
• An area chart (sample 3) that displays progress by stacking a line chart by percentage.
• An inverted bar chart (sample 4) that uses zero as a reference point between positive and negative values.
• A bar chart with an area chart (sample 5) to display sales data and scores in a single chart.

Pie Chart and Gauge Visualizations

Pie charts display categorical data divided into sections, so you can see each section’s value in comparison to the whole.

Gauges show progress toward a goal. This chart type is best for tracking single values that have a clear, immediate objective, for example, sales or revenue performance.

The pie chart and gauge visualizations dashboard includes the following Klips:

• A pie chart (sample 1) that uses colours and labels for added context.
• A donut chart (sample 2) that compares parts of a whole, where Canada, USA, and Germany’s sales percentages add up to 100%.
• A horizontal gauge (sample 1), an arc gauge (sample 2), and a vertical gauge (sample 3) that display the current value and use colour to show progress toward a target.

Sparkline, Value, and Pictograph Visualizations

Sparklines don’t include an axis or a legend. They focus on a single value that’s being tracked over time. This chart type includes sparklines, spark bars, and win/loss visualizations.

Single value charts are also simplistically designed and can be used in a wide variety of ways – from adding textual context to a dashboard to tracking a single metric toward a goal in a bullet chart.

Value pair charts bring two related items together. They include a primary and secondary value, where the secondary value provides context for the primary value or is used for comparison purposes.

Pictographs use icons or symbols to visually display simple, numerical data.

This dashboard includes a variety of sparkline, single value, value pair, and pictograph example Klips:

• A sparkline and a spark bar that display current and historical values and a sparkline that highlights two series, visualized using a win/loss chart and a line chart, to show trends for a single data set.
• A single value, a single value with a date, and a bullet chart.
• A value pair, a value pair with a spark bar that displays the current value and historical values, and a value pair with indicators that displays the current value compared to yesterday, where a coloured icon shows improvement or regression.
• A 5 star pictograph with no score assigned to it and a pictograph with percentage that displays an example score of 3.5 out of 5.

Table Visualizations

Tables work well for presenting two-dimensional data that’s organized into columns and rows. They’re also a great way to present a lot of data in a small space. In addition, their familiar, linear design makes table data easy to consume and interpret.

This dashboard includes the following table examples:

• A table with a wide range of configuration options. Tables can be so much more than just text and values. This example shows how to make tables more visually compelling by adding elements like hyperlinks, images, and a variety of sparkline charts.
• A table that includes drill-down functionality to dig into details for each category and analyze hierarchical relationships between values.

How do I add a sample dashboard?

To add a sample dashboard:

1. You add sample dashboards from the Dashboard Gallery. There are a couple ways to get there:
   • In the left navigation sidebar, click the 3-dot menu beside Dashboards and select Pre-built Dashboard Gallery.
     OR
   • In the Dashboard Library, click Open Dashboard Gallery.
2. By default, when you open the Dashboard Gallery, all dashboards display. To see a list of sample dashboards only, type “sample” into the Search field (as shown below).
   
3. Learn more about a dashboard before adding it by viewing a brief description (visible when you hover over the dashboard image).
   Tip: You can tell which dashboards include sample data by looking for the “Demo data only” text (as shown below).
   
4. When you’re ready to add the dashboard to your account, click + Add dashboard.
   The dashboard opens and is added to your Dashboard Library.

Note: If you're a White-Label customer, you'll find links to access pre-built dashboards in this article.

How do I view Klip configuration settings?

As mentioned above, you can use our sample dashboards to learn more about best-practice Klip configuration.

To view a Klip’s configuration settings:

1. After adding a sample dashboard to your account, click the 3-dot menu for any Klip and select Edit (as shown below).
   
2. In the Klip Editor, select components in the component tree (on the left) or in the Klip preview (in the centre area) and open the tabs (for example, Data, Properties, Layout, and Indicators) to view the underlying data, formulas, and formatting that have been applied to the Klip.
   You’ll learn more about the Klip Editor UI in the following “Intro, tips and examples” section.

The Klip Editor: Intro, tips, and examples

Let’s begin with a brief description of Klip building and then take a look at the Klip Editor. Along the way, you’ll find tips and examples for exploring and learning from a sample Klip’s configuration.

A Klip is a widget you use to visualize data. Klips are constructed using components. Some examples of components are funnel charts, bar/line charts, gauges, labels, user input controls, and value pairs. Go here for a full list and an introduction to components.

When you build a Klip, you:

1. Choose a data source.
2. Choose a component.
3. Assign data to sub-components (which may involve the use of formulas).
4. Adjust the Klip’s properties.

When you enter the Klip Editor, you’ll see a series of tabs. Clicking each tab opens a workspace where you configure settings for your Klip. The following example includes data, properties, and indicators tabs. However, the tabs you see here depend on the component you’ve selected.

The component tree displays on the left. When you click an item in the tree, the tabbed workspaces below change to reflect the configurable settings for that component. For example, if you select a Table component, the properties and drill down tabs display:

Clicking a sub-component in the component tree or in the component itself works in the same way. Clicking the data tab reveals the formula being used to calculate the data:

Tip: Explore the formulas used in our sample dashboard Klips. See how they’re written to manipulate and calculate the data in each Klip. Feel free to copy and paste them as a starting or reference point for your own Klips–especially helpful when connecting a sample Klip to your own data source. If you’re looking for more information, go here for an introduction to the formula bar or here for tips on writing formulas. The Klip Editor supports a wide variety of Excel-like functions. If you want to learn more, see our Function Reference Guide.

Several of our sample dashboards include Klips with colours that react based on changes to the data. Using indicators, you can change the colour of values, the background colour of table cells, assign display icons, change text style, or replace values with text – all based on conditional thresholds you configure.

Example: The Lead Funnel Dashboard includes a lead funnel table with conversion rate percentages configured to turn green or red depending on specific thresholds. Editing this Klip and opening the Indicators tab shows you how it’s set up. (See below.) Learn more about using indicators.

Some Klips in our sample dashboards include a user input control component. User input controls use variables to enable you to interact with Klips and control the displayed data.

Example: The Executive Dashboard includes a Gross Margin sample Klip with a “text field” user input control that uses a “sample_target” variable. This configuration enables users to enter a target value for this Klip on a dashboard and see the line/area chart react accordingly. Editing this Klip and opening the Properties tab shows you how it’s set up. (See below.) Learn more about user input controls.

This article includes a few ideas for investigating Klip configuration settings using our sample dashboards. One of the great things about Klipfolio Klips is its flexibility – you can use it to visualize data in so many ways! As such, it would be impossible to describe all the things you can do. We recommend you just get in there and explore!

Tip: If you “break” a Klip, you can delete it and start fresh by adding a new sample.

Tip: You can find individual sample Klips in the Klip Gallery by clicking the +Add Klip button in any open dashboard. In the Klip Gallery, click Sample Metrics or Visualizations to see a list of sample Klips. To add one to your dashboard, select it and click Add to Dashboard.

How do I modify a sample Klip to display my company’s data?

Everyone’s data is unique. As such, the best way to describe modifying a sample Klip to display your data is with an example everyone can follow along with.

Our example uses:

• The New Business (Sample data) Klip located in the Executive Dashboard (accessed from the Dashboard Gallery).
• The Example: Live Sales Data data source. This data source is included in every Klips account and is located in your Data Source Library. (See below.)
  

In the following example, we’ll replace some of the sample data in the New Business Klip with data from the Example: Live Sales Data data source.

Note: If you want to save changes as you edit the Klip, you can periodically click “Save”. If you want to save the Klip and come back to it later, click “Save and Exit”. If you want to save your changes but keep the original Klip unchanged, click “Save as Copy”.

To replace sample data in the New Business Klip:

1. Go to the Dashboard Gallery (in the left navigation sidebar, click the 3-dot menu beside Dashboards and select Pre-built Dashboard Gallery).
2. Add the Executive Dashboard.
3. Click the 3-dot menu for the New Business (Sample data) Klip and select Edit.
   
4. In the Klip Editor, open the Data tab and click +Add Data Source.
   
5. On the Add a Data Source page, select the Example: Live Sales Data data source.
   Note: There are two versions of this data source in your library – a raw one and a modelled one. Make sure you choose the raw version (indicated by this Format icon).
   
6. Next, we’ll update the Klip to refer to the Date column in our new data source:
   • In the component tree, click X Axis: Month. (See below.)
     
   • Open the Data tab and clear the formula. Then, select the Example: Live Sales Data data source to make it the active data source for the Klip. (See below.)
     
   • Click the “A” (Date) column.
     The Klip has been updated to display the new dates. Now, we need to update the formatting.
     Note: The Example: Live Sales Data data source is organized by columns (a column for dates and columns for data). Before connecting one of your own spreadsheet data sources to a sample Klip, make sure it’s organized in the same way. If your data is set up differently, you can still use it but you may need to apply formulas and functions first to ensure it aligns with the sample Klip format. Learn how to use functions.
7. To update the formatting:
   • First, we’ll change the input format to match that of the new data source.
   • Open the Properties tab, click the dropdown at Input Format, and select Unix Time (as seconds). (See below.)
     
   • To streamline the Klip presentation, we’ll group the data by clicking the 3-dot menu and selecting Group. (See below.) The axis will group values based on the display format set in the axis properties. In our case, the display format is 'MMM yyyy', so the Klip will show monthly groupings of dates.
     
     Alternatively, you can group the data by opening the Properties tab and selecting Group repeating labels.
     
     Tip: When a data source includes a lot of data points, grouping consolidates the data, making the visualization less cluttered and easier to understand.
   • In the Properties panel, optionally, adjust the tick label and tick marks for the X Axis.
     
8. Let’s take a moment to look at filtering:
   • Note that the X Axis has a filter applied to it. To view and edit filters, click the 3-dot menu and select Edit Filter.
     
   • This is where you could adjust the number of months to display in the Klip. In our example, we’ll keep it as-is, with an 8-month rolling time frame, as shown below.
     
9. Now, we’ll modify the Klip to refer to the Revenue column in our new data source:
   • In the component tree, click Series: New MRR. (See below.)
     
   • Open the Data tab, clear the formula, select the Example: Live Sales Data data source, and click the “C” (Revenue) column.
   • Open the Properties tab and change the Series Label from “New MRR” to “Revenue”.
     
10. Next, let’s modify the Klip to refer to the Quantity column in our new data source:
    • In the component tree, click Series: New Accounts. (See below.)
      
    • Open the Data tab, clear the formula, select the Example: Live Sales Data data source, and click the “D” (Qty) column.
    • Open the Properties tab and change the Series Label from “New Wins” to “Quantity”.
    • In the component tree, change Series: New Accounts to “Series: Quantity” by clicking its 3-dot menu > Rename and entering Quantity.
11. In the component tree, select each Y Axis component in turn, adjust the labels, and make any other desired changes to the Klip display properties.
    For example:
    • Change the name for Y Axis: New MRR to “Revenue” and the name for Y Axis: New Accounts to “Quantity” by selecting each component, clicking its 3-dot menu, and selecting Rename.
    • Select the Y Axis: Revenue component and adjust the Axis Range to ensure all of the data will display in the Klip. In this example, we changed the Max from 7500 to 20 000. (See below.)
      
    • Select the Y Axis: Quantity component and adjust the Axis Range by de-selecting Use custom range. The Klip will actively adjust to display data effectively based on the quantity values. (See below.)
      
12. You’ve updated the bar/line chart in the sample Klip to use and display the data from the Example: Live Sales Data data source. If you click Save and Exit, it should look like this on the dashboard:
    
13. To keep learning, we suggest you continue exploring this Klip by modifying the Layout Grid components, as shown below. Editing these components will update the top half of the sample Klip, where the two single value charts display.
    

If you have any questions on replacing sample Klip data, please open a ticket with the Support Team.

Learn more

You’ll find several introductory and in-depth articles on Klip building in these sections of our Knowledge Base:

• Managing, building, and editing Klips
• Creating charts and other data visualizations