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💼 Workspace

The Story Dashboard workspace is a functional module within the Metad Analytics Cloud, allowing users to create interactive data story dashboards and present data analysis results through charts, visualizations, and text.

Within the Story Dashboard workspace, there are three main sections: the canvas, the floating toolbar, and the property editing sidebar. These sections provide core functionality for users to create and edit story dashboards.

  1. Canvas: The canvas is the main area of the Story Dashboard workspace where users can create and layout their data visualizations and story content. Users can drag and drop various charts, visualization elements, and text boxes onto the canvas, adjust their size and position to achieve the desired layout and design. By interacting with components on the canvas, users can select, filter, and explore data and present it to their audience.

  2. Toolbar: The floating toolbar is a floating bar located above the canvas, containing some commonly used tools and operations to facilitate editing and modification within the story dashboard. The tools include adding charts, adding text boxes, adjusting layout, saving, previewing, etc. Users can click on these tools to perform corresponding actions quickly for editing and creation.

  3. Property Editing Sidebar: The property editing sidebar is a sidebar panel located on the right side of the canvas, providing functionality to edit the detailed settings and properties of selected components. When a user selects a component on the canvas, the property editing sidebar displays the properties and options of that component, such as data source, chart type, color, font style, etc. Users can adjust and customize these properties according to their needs to make charts and visualization elements meet their requirements.

Toolbar​

Toolbar is a toolbar in the story designer that includes a series of commonly used functions. It can exist in the form of a floating window or be fixed to the sidebar. The toolbar contains the following sub-functional areas:

New Canvas Page​

In the Story Dashboard workspace, when you create an empty story dashboard, you have two options to start designing your dashboard layout:

  1. Add canvas pages with different layout types: In the Story Dashboard workspace, in the wizard, click "New Canvas Page" or in the toolbar, click "Preferences" -> "New Page" -> "Different Types of Pages", you can add multiple canvas pages and choose different layout types to meet your needs. The layout type defines how components on the canvas are arranged and sized. You can choose the appropriate layout type according to your data and visualization needs. Here are some common layout types:

    • Responsive Layout: Components on the canvas automatically adjust their size to fit different screen sizes and resolutions.
    • Fixed Size Layout: Components on the canvas maintain a fixed size and do not change with screen size and resolution.
    • Fixed Height Layout: Components on the canvas maintain a fixed height, but the width changes with screen size and resolution.

  2. Add dashboard quickly with story templates: The Story Dashboard workspace also provides pre-designed story templates to help you quickly create dashboards and start working. These templates contain common dashboard layouts and example charts, which can be directly applied to your blank story dashboard to quickly generate initial structures. You can modify and customize according to the examples in the template to fit your data and analysis goals. Using story templates can save you time designing dashboards while also providing inspiration and guidance for layout and visualization. See details Story Templates

In addition to using predefined canvas types, users can also customize canvas settings. Open the story properties editing interface and click on the blank space of the page to bring up the grid layout property settings interface. The grid layout has the following properties:

  • Layout Type:
    • Fixed: Fixed pixel layout, grid size is determined by fixed column width and fixed row height
      • Fixed Size Not Set: The initial number of columns in the grid is calculated from the screen width, and the initial number of rows is determined by minimum row count;
      • Fixed Size Set: The initial number of grids is determined by minimum column count and minimum row count, and can be expanded by dragging components beyond the existing area. The grid will be displayed centered.
    • Fit to Screen: Adapt to screen size layout, the number of grids is determined by minimum column count and minimum row count, grid size is not fixed (fixed column width and fixed row height do not work) and fills the entire screen size;
    • Scroll Vertical: Vertical scrolling layout, the initial number of grids is determined by minimum column count and minimum row count, and the grid size changes to adapt to fill the screen width, the grid height is the same as the width, and the grid layout scrolls vertically.
    • Scroll Horizontal: Similar to vertical scrolling layout;
    • Vertical Fixed: Vertical fixed size layout, vertical grid height is determined by fixed row height, and scrolls when exceeding the screen height on the basis of minimum row count. The horizontal changes the grid width to fill the screen width based on the minimum column count;
    • Horizontal Fixed: Horizontal fixed size layout, similar to vertical fixed size layout;
  • Display Grid: When to display the grid, do not display, always display, display when dragging;
  • Compact Type: Automatic compact processing direction;
  • Margin: Grid margin size, including spacing between grids;
  • Outer Margin: Whether to retain the outer margin blank of the grid;
  • Multi-Layer: Allow overlapping of widget positions.

Preferences​

Story Preferences provide management and common settings for detailed information, styles, calculated members, sharing, and downloading functions of the story dashboard. See details Preferences

Global Styles​

Story Global Styles feature allows you to uniformly set and adjust the appearance and style of the story dashboard to maintain consistency and present professional and appealing data visualization effects. See details Global Styles

Devices​

The Devices menu allows you to simulate the device models for the story dashboard so that you can view the effects of the story dashboard on different devices. See details Devices

Preview/Edit​

The Preview and Edit buttons can switch the editing state of the story dashboard. In preview mode, you can view the final effect of the story dashboard but cannot edit it. In edit mode, you can edit the story dashboard.

Fullscreen​

The Fullscreen button can switch the workspace page to full-screen mode, and the floating toolbar will automatically hide, allowing you to immerse in editing and viewing the story dashboard.

Widgets​

The widgets section in the toolbar is the core function of the story dashboard, where you can add and manage widgets in the story dashboard. For details of each widget, please refer to Widgets

There are two ways to add widgets to the canvas:

  • Select and Add: After selecting the add widget button, use the mouse to drag and draw a rectangular area on the canvas, you can add a widget to the story dashboard. After adding the widget, you can adjust its position and size by dragging, or

    adjust its size by dragging the border of the widget.

  • Drag and Drop to Add: The drag-and-drop widget button can add the widget to the story dashboard. After adding the widget, you can adjust its position and size by dragging, or adjust its size by dragging the border of the widget.

Story Dashboard Adding Widgets

AI Copilot​

The AI Copilot provides the functionality to control the dashboard settings with natural language. By conversing with the AI Copilot, you can customize and adjust the appearance, chart properties, and component styles of the dashboard efficiently, using natural language commands and instructions, thereby facilitating the design and configuration of the story dashboard. See details AI Copilot