Dashboard Widgets

Overview

A widget is a single chart or metrics panel on a dashboard. Every widget is a self-contained mini-report: it has its own filter settings, its own display mode, and its own size. This independence is what makes dashboards useful: one screen can hold different metrics with different slices of your data.

Widget Types

Widgets are added with the Add widget button inside a group. The Add Widget window opens with widget cards — you can select several at once and add them in one click.

Six widget types are available:

Each widget calculates data with the same logic as the report of the same name — see the report pages for detailed methodology: Lead Time, Throughput Chart, Percentile Trend, Flow Efficiency, Control Chart, WIP Run Chart.

Full-featured dashboards are an Expert plan capability. In the demo mode on the FREE and PRO plans, only Lead Time Distribution and Throughput can be added (up to three widgets per dashboard); premium cards are visible but dimmed — a tooltip explains that the chart is available in the Expert plan.

Widget Settings

Hover over the widget header and click the gear icon — a settings panel opens on the right. Everything you can change about a widget lives here.

Title and Group

• Widget Title — a custom widget name (up to 80 characters). Useful when the dashboard has two widgets of the same type with different filters: name them "Lead Time — bugs" and "Lead Time — features" and there will be no confusion.
• Group — moves the widget to another group (the selector appears when there is more than one group). You can also simply drag the widget to another group by its header.

Display Mode

The same widget can look different — from a full chart to one big number:

• Chart Only — just the chart, maximum space for the visualization.
• Chart + Metrics — the chart with a row of key metrics below it.
• Metrics Panel — a compact grid of metrics without a chart. Suitable when the numbers matter more than the curve's shape.
• Hero Metric — one large metric. Perfect for the single most important number that should be visible from across the room.

For how to read metric cards and trend arrows, see Metrics and Trends.

Size

The dashboard is built on a 12-column grid. The following sizes are available in widget settings:

• XS (2 columns) — for the Hero Metric mode only;
• S (4 columns), M (6 columns), L (8 columns), XL (full width).

The set of available sizes depends on the display mode: for example, Hero Metric can only be XS or S, while charts range from S to XL. Unavailable sizes are dimmed in the selector.

Widget Date Range: Shared or Custom

The first thing in the Filters section is the date range choice:

• Use dashboard date (default) — the widget follows the global range from the dashboard header.
• Custom date range — the widget gets its own date range and stops reacting to the global one. Such a widget is marked with a custom-date badge in its header — so it's clear that it "lives on its own calendar".

A custom range is handy for comparisons: place two identical widgets side by side — one for "last month", the other for "the month before".

Data Filters

Further down in the Filters section are the same sampling tools as in reports:

• Filtering Mode — Activity or Completion (see Filtering Modes).
• Columns — the board columns used for time calculation.
• Completion Columns — the completion columns.
• Swimlanes and Quick Filters — board swimlanes and quick filters.
• Resolution — time axis granularity (day/week/two weeks/month), Lead Time Distribution only.

The filter set varies slightly by widget type: for widgets with dataset comparison (Throughput, Control Chart, WIP Run Chart), swimlanes and quick filters are configured not here but inside each dataset — see the next section.

The general principle of how filters work is described in Data Sampling and Filtering.

Chart Options

The Chart Options section holds settings specific to the widget type: percentile lines for Lead Time Distribution, period type and the accumulated average line for Throughput, the WIP limit for WIP Run Chart, active work columns for Flow Efficiency, and so on.

Datasets: Comparison on One Chart

The Throughput, Control Chart, and WIP Run Chart widgets can show several data sets on one chart. Each such set is called a dataset: it has a name, a color, and its own filters (swimlanes and quick filters).

A typical scenario is comparing teams: a "Team Alpha" dataset with one team's quick filter and a "Team Beta" dataset with another's. The chart shows two lines/series in different colors, and the difference in dynamics is visible immediately.

Datasets are managed in the Datasets section of the settings panel:

• Add — the Add Dataset button, up to 5 datasets per widget.
• Name and color — each dataset gets its own color from the palette; the color can be changed.
• Filters — Swimlanes and Quick Filters are selected inside the dataset card. An empty selection means "all tasks".
• Hide/show — a dataset can be temporarily hidden from the chart without deleting it (it appears struck through in the list).
• Delete — the last remaining dataset cannot be deleted: a widget always needs at least one data set.

Interacting with Widgets

• Dragging — grab the widget header and drag it to a new position, including into another group.
• Clicking a dot on the Control Chart opens the Task Flow dialog — a breakdown of where a specific task spent its time.
• Errors don't spread — if something goes wrong in one widget, the others keep working; the affected widget shows a message and a Retry button.

Deleting a Widget

The Delete widget button is at the bottom of the widget settings panel. Deletion cannot be undone, so JMP asks for confirmation.

Recommendations

1. Start small. Three widgets you actually look at every week beat fifteen added "just in case".
2. Give widgets meaningful names. "Throughput — support" is clearer than two identical "Throughput" widgets.
3. Use Hero Metric for what matters most. One big number (for example, the P85 completion time) sets the focus for the whole dashboard.
4. Compare with datasets, not separate widgets — differences are easier to see on one chart than on two neighboring ones.