Glossary of Terms

Introduction to the Generative Dashboards Glossary

The Generative Dashboards Glossary is designed to help you get the most out of the application’s chart-generation features. When prompting Generative Dashboards, using the right terms ensures that your requests are interpreted accurately and that the charts produced match your expectations.

This glossary provides clear definitions of key terms commonly used in data visualization and dashboard creation covering chart types, layout options, axes, data formatting, and more. By referencing these terms in your prompts, you’ll reduce ambiguity, streamline the creation process, and unlock the full potential of Generative Dashboards.

Whether you’re just starting out or you’re an experienced analyst, this resource will help you communicate more effectively with the system and create dashboards that bring your data to life.

Core Concepts

Dashboard: The entire screen that holds your collection of charts. It’s the canvas for your data story.
Dimension: A column in your data that contains text or categories. Use dimensions to group or "slice" your data.
- Examples: "Country," "Product Category," "Marketing Channel."
Measure (or Metric): A column in your data that contains numbers you want to track and analyze.
- Examples: "Sales," "Revenue," "Page Views," "Number of Clicks."
Row: A horizontal section on your dashboard where you can place one or more charts side-by-side.

Chart Types

Scorecard (or Hero Metric): A large, single number that highlights your most important metric (KPI). It’s perfect for grabbing attention and is best placed at the top of your dashboard.
- Use it for: "Total Revenue," "New Customers this Month," or "Average Order Value."
Line Chart: Shows a trend over time. It's the best way to see how a metric is performing.
- Use it to: Track "Daily Sales over the last 30 days," compare "Website Visits vs. Sign-ups," or see "Sales by Product Category" over a year.
Bar Chart: Uses horizontal bars to compare numbers across different categories. It's great for ranking things.
- Use it to: Show your "Top 5 Performing Ad Campaigns" or compare "Sales across different Regions."
Column Chart: Uses vertical columns to compare numbers. It's especially good for showing changes from one time period to the next.
- Use it to: Display "Monthly Sales this Year" or "Daily Website Traffic for the past week."
Area Chart: Similar to a line chart, but the area under the line is filled in. It's best for showing how the parts of a whole change over time.
- Use it to: Visualize how much of your total website traffic came from "Google," "Facebook," and "Direct" each day for a month.
Pie Chart: A classic circle chart that shows how different categories make up a total. It's best for simple breakdowns of a single metric.
- Use it for: "Sales by Region" for a single quarter or "Device Type (Mobile vs. Desktop) for your users."
Scatter Plot: Helps you see the relationship between two different number-based metrics. Each dot on the chart represents a category.
- Use it to: See if "Ad Spend" is related to "Sales," or if "Discount Amount" affects "Quantity Sold."
Pivot Table: A powerful and interactive data table that lets you summarize large amounts of information. You can group your data by different categories and see totals in a clear, organized way.
- Use it when: You need to see a detailed breakdown, like "Sales, Costs, and Profit, grouped by Product and then by Country."

Filtering and Customization

Filters: Rules you can set to focus on specific parts of your data. This lets you drill down into what’s most important.
- Examples: "Only show data for the USA," or "Only show campaigns where Cost was greater than $1,000."
Date Range: The time period your dashboard will cover.
- Examples: "Last 30 Days," "This Quarter," or "The entire year of 2024."

Common Filter Commands

When you ask for a filter, you can use simple phrases:

is or equals: To find an exact match (e.g., "Platform is Facebook").
is not or does not equal: To exclude a value.
contains: To find text that includes a certain word (e.g., "Campaign Name contains 'Summer'").
greater than or less than: For number-based filters.
is empty or is not empty: To find data where a field is either blank or has a value.

Technical Glossary

This expand below contains more technical terms for use.

Advanced Glossary

General Terms

Dashboard: A collection of charts and data visualizations organized into rows.
Dimension: A categorical column in your data that can be used to group, segment, or filter. Examples: Platform, Campaign, Date.
Measure: A numerical or quantitative column in your data that can be aggregated. Examples: Cost, Impressions, ROAS.
Metric: Synonymous with Measure.
Row: A horizontal container within a dashboard that can hold one or more charts.
measureColors: An object that maps each measure to a consistent hex color code, ensuring that the same measure is represented by the same color across all charts in the dashboard.

Chart-Specific Options

AreaChart

dimensionToStackBy: The dimension used to create the different "layers" or "areas" in the chart.

BarChart & ColumnChart

_metricColumnTop_ / _yAxisColumnLeft_: The primary metric displayed on the chart.
_metricColumnBottom_ / _yAxisColumnRight_: The secondary metric displayed for comparison.
_dimensionColumn_ / _xAxisColumn_: The dimension used for the categories on the x-axis (for ColumnChart) or y-axis (for BarChart).

Scorecard / HeroMetric

_numeratorColumn_: The primary metric to be displayed. If the scorecard is a calculation (like a rate or average), this is the numerator.
_denominatorColumn_: If the scorecard is a calculation, this is the denominator. Set to false if the scorecard is a simple sum or count.
_prefix_: A character or symbol to display before the number (e.g., $).
_suffix_: A character or symbol to display after the number (e.g., %).

LineChart

_dimensionToSplitBy_: The dimension used to split a single metric into multiple lines.
_yAxisColumnLeft_: The primary metric.
_yAxisColumnRight_: The secondary metric, if comparing two metrics on the same chart.

PieChart

_dimensionColumn_: The dimension that divides the pie into slices.
_metricColumn_: The metric that determines the size of each slice.

PivotTable

_defaultDimensions_: A list of dimensions that will be enabled for grouping by default.
_defaultMetrics_: A list of metrics that will be aggregated and shown by default.
_costColumns_: A list of metric columns that should be formatted as currency.
_percentColumns_: A list of metric columns that should be formatted as percentages.
_numberColumns_: A list of metric columns that should be formatted as plain numbers.

ScatterChart

_dimension_: The dimension that each point on the scatter plot represents.
_xAxisMetric_: The metric to be plotted on the X-axis.
_yAxisMetric_: The metric to be plotted on the Y-axis.

Filtering

defaultFilters: A set of filters to be applied to the dashboard by default upon loading. Filters can be combined using and or or logic.
defaultTimeDimensions: The default time range for the dashboard data.
- dimension: The name of the date column.
- dateRange: The start and end dates in YYYY-MM-DD format.
- granularity: The time unit for the data (e.g., day).

Filter Operators

When defining filters, you can use the following operators:

equals: Matches values that are exactly equal.
notEquals: Matches values that are not equal.
contains: Matches values that contain the specified string.
notContains: Matches values that do not contain the specified string.
gt: Greater than.
gte: Greater than or equal to.
lt: Less than.
lte: Less than or equal to.
set: Matches if the value is not null.
notSet: Matches if the value is null.