Working with dashboard bookmarks

Explore dashboards provide a customizable space for organizing and sharing information. They are primarily made of reports about your business information stored in Zendesk, though you can add other elements like logos, text, and shapes. It's common to add filters to a dashboard that enable people who you share the dashboard with to change what's displayed like the report dates, groups, users, and many other items. For some examples of dashboard filters, see Explore recipe: Getting to know dashboard filters.

A challenge can arise when multiple people want to use the same dashboard with different filter settings. For example, John wants to look at problem tickets from the documentation group and Judy wants to look at task tickets from the finance team. To prevent users from having to set the filters they need each time they look at the dashboard, you can bookmark dashboard states and then return to them with a single click.

In this article, you'll learn how to create and use bookmarks in your Explore dashboards. You'll also read about some of the frequently asked questions that customers like yourself often ask.

This article contains the following sections:

• Setting up bookmarks
• Using bookmarks across multiple dashboard tabs
• Further reading

Setting up bookmarks

This example uses a simple dashboard that shows a report for solved tickets by assignee name. Two filters have been added to the dashboard:

• A time filter that enables you to change the time period that the report covers.
• A change metric filter that enables you to change the Solved tickets metric to Unsolved tickets, Open tickets, or Pending tickets.

For more information about dashboard filters, see Adding interactive dashboard widgets.

You've shared this dashboard with two departments in your company:

• Department 1 wants to quickly see the number of tickets solved yesterday.
• Department 2 wants to quickly see the current total number of unsolved tickets for each assignee.

When the dashboard is first opened, you want it to default to show the configuration for Department 1.

To accomplish this, you'll add bookmarks to the dashboard with buttons to set the dashboard up for Department 1 or Department 2.

To add bookmarks to the dashboard

1. First, configure the dashboard filters to show the settings for Department 1. Set the time filter to Yesterday and the change metric to Solved tickets.
2. From the Add menu, click Bookmark.
3. In the Bookmark panel, click Create bookmark from current state.
4. In the name field, enter the name "Department 1" for the bookmark. As you want Department 1 to be the default, click the pin icon ().

   

5. When you are finished, click Close. Your new bookmark for Department 1 is now displayed in your dashboard. You can move and resize the bookmark to suit your needs.
6. Now, you'll set the dashboard up for Department 2. Set the time filter to All history and the change metric to Unsolved tickets.
7. From the bookmark you previously added, click Edit.

   

8. In the Bookmark panel, click Create bookmark from current state.
9. In the name field, enter the name "Department 2" for the bookmark.
10. The Reset button on the bookmark, when clicked reverts the bookmark to its pinned state, in this example, Department 1. If you don't want users to have this option, enable Hide reset button.

    

11. When you are finished, click Close. Department 2 is added to your existing bookmark. You can now click each department to see the relevant settings.

    

Choosing bookmark sets the dashboard filters to a previously saved state. The dashboard viewer can still manually reconfigure the dashboard filters if they want to look at other filter configurations.

Using bookmarks across multiple dashboard tabs

Sometimes, dashboards get too big for a single page and you'll split them into multiple pages known as tabs. To learn more about tabs, see Working with dashboard tabs.

By default, bookmarks work on a single tab. However, with the right configuration, you can make bookmarks for data filters, time filters, and live data filters work across multiple dashboard tabs.

To use bookmarks across multiple dashboard tabs

1. Add the filters that your bookmark will use to each applicable tab of your dashboard. For instructions on adding filters, see Using filters across multiple tabs.

2. Set a bookmark on at least the first tab that you added your filters to.

   Tip: To improve usability for the user viewing the dashboard, add the same bookmark to all tabs where it applies. The bookmark will still function across multiple tabs with the filters you applied (even if you add the bookmark to only one tab) unless the filter has the Do not share across tabs option selected.

Further reading

• Explore recipe: Using bookmarks to filter live dashboards
• Explore recipe: Taking dashboard filters and bookmarks to the next level
• Best practices for using dashboard filters