> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.qvista.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Build and Share Interactive Dashboards in Qvista
> Create interactive Qvista dashboards with live filters, drill-downs, multi-user collaboration, role-based access, and real-time data refresh.
A Qvista dashboard is a live, interactive canvas that combines multiple charts, summary cards, and filter controls into a single view. Dashboards update automatically as your data changes, support drill-downs and cross-chart filtering, and can be shared with teammates or embedded in external platforms — all without requiring recipients to install anything. Whether you are building an executive KPI summary or a detailed operational report for a specific team, dashboards give you a flexible, no-code workspace to assemble and publish exactly the view your audience needs.
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## Creating your first dashboard
Follow these steps to go from a blank canvas to a published, interactive dashboard.
From the Qvista home screen, click **New Dashboard**. Give your dashboard a name and, optionally, a description. Select the workspace folder where it should live so your team can find it later.
Click **Add Data** in the top toolbar and select an existing DataTable or connect a new data source. Your DataTable is the live reference that all charts on this dashboard will draw from. You can connect multiple DataTables to a single dashboard for cross-source analysis.
Click **+ Add Chart** on the canvas. Choose a chart type from the panel, then drag the fields from your DataTable onto the axis and value slots. Qvista renders a live preview immediately. Resize and reposition the chart block by dragging its edges or corners.
Repeat the process to add additional charts, summary metric cards, and data tables. Use the drag-and-drop canvas to arrange elements into a clear, logical layout. Group related charts visually by placing them in proximity and using section header text blocks.
Click **+ Add Filter** to place interactive filter controls on the dashboard — date-range pickers, dropdown lists, multi-select checkboxes, or free-text search fields. In each filter's settings, choose which charts it affects. Enable **Cross-Chart Interaction** so that clicking an element in one chart filters the others automatically.
Open **Dashboard Settings** and navigate to **Data Refresh**. Choose an automatic refresh interval — from every 30 seconds up to every 24 hours — or leave it on manual refresh. Charts update silently in the background without disrupting a viewer who is actively exploring the dashboard.
Click **Save** to store a draft, or **Publish** to make the dashboard visible to your team and any recipients you share it with. Published dashboards are immediately accessible via their shareable link or embedded widget.
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## Adding and arranging charts
Once your dashboard canvas is open, you can add and configure charts at any time.
* **Drag to resize:** Grab any edge or corner of a chart block and drag to resize it. Charts reflow automatically to fill the available canvas width.
* **Duplicate charts:** Right-click any chart block and select **Duplicate** to create a copy with the same configuration. Use this to quickly build comparison views across different filters or date ranges.
* **Swap chart types:** Change a chart's type at any time from the Properties panel without losing your field bindings. Qvista remaps the existing fields to the new chart type where possible.
* **Pin a chart to a fixed position:** Lock any chart block to prevent it from being accidentally moved or resized during collaborative editing sessions.
Place your most important KPI summary cards at the top of the canvas where they are visible immediately without scrolling. Use the larger chart blocks below for detailed visualizations that reward exploration.
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## Configuring filters and slicers
Filters let viewers dynamically adjust what they see on a dashboard without modifying the underlying data or affecting other users' sessions.
### Filter types
Let viewers select a start and end date to scope all time-series charts simultaneously
Bind a dropdown to a categorical field — for example, Region or Product Category — so viewers can select one value at a time
Allow viewers to select multiple values from a field and see charts filtered to that combined set
Add a text-input filter for high-cardinality fields like customer names or order IDs
### Cross-chart interaction
Enable **Cross-Chart Interaction** in Dashboard Settings to turn any chart into a filter source. When a viewer clicks a bar segment, pie slice, or heatmap cell, every other chart on the dashboard that shares the same DataTable updates to reflect that selection. Click the same element again to clear the filter.
Cross-chart interaction and manual filter controls work together. A viewer can combine a date-range selection from the filter panel with a category selection from a pie chart click to drill into a highly specific data slice.
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## Saving multiple views for different audiences
Qvista lets you save multiple named **Views** of the same dashboard, each storing a distinct combination of applied filters, visible chart sets, and layout configurations.
Use Views to:
* Give the sales team a View that defaults to the current quarter and filters to their region
* Give the executive team a View that shows only top-level KPI cards without detailed breakdown charts
* Give external clients a View that pre-filters data to their account and hides internal metrics
Viewers with access to the dashboard can switch between saved Views using the **View Selector** in the top bar, or you can share a direct link that opens a specific View automatically.
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## Multi-user collaboration
Qvista dashboards support real-time collaborative editing so that multiple team members can work on the same dashboard simultaneously.
* **Live presence indicators** show which teammates currently have the dashboard open.
* **Edit locking** prevents two editors from modifying the same chart block at the same time — the second editor sees the block as locked and can request access.
* **Change history** logs every modification with a timestamp and the name of the editor who made it. Roll back to any previous state from the **History** panel.
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## Role-based access control
Control who can view, interact with, and edit each dashboard using Qvista's role-based permissions.
| Role | View | Apply filters | Edit charts | Manage sharing |
| ---------- | ---- | ------------- | ----------- | -------------- |
| **Viewer** | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| **Editor** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| **Owner** | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
Assign roles at the individual user level or by team. Roles apply to both internal Qvista users and external recipients who access the dashboard through a shareable link.
Shareable links grant access at the **Viewer** role by default. If you need to give an external recipient edit access, invite them as a named user rather than using a public link.
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## Real-time data refresh settings
Configure how often Qvista fetches fresh data from your connected sources and pushes the update to all open dashboard sessions.
* **Manual refresh:** Viewers click a refresh button to pull the latest data on demand.
* **Scheduled refresh:** Set an interval (30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, 15 minutes, 1 hour, or 24 hours). Qvista refreshes silently in the background.
* **Event-triggered refresh:** For data sources that support webhooks, configure Qvista to refresh a DataTable immediately when a new record is written to the source.
Use shorter refresh intervals (30 seconds to 1 minute) for operational dashboards that monitor live processes. Use longer intervals (1 hour or 24 hours) for strategic reporting dashboards where near-real-time precision is not required, to reduce unnecessary data source queries.
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## Embedding dashboards externally
Embed any published Qvista dashboard into a website, intranet portal, or third-party BI tool using an embed snippet.
1. Open the dashboard and click **Share** in the top-right corner.
2. Select **Embed** from the sharing options.
3. Configure embed options: set a fixed height and width, choose whether to show the filter panel, and select which View to display by default.
4. Copy the generated `