You can share a link to a dashboard with external users who do not have a Zendesk account. The link can also be used to display the dashboard on a television or monitor. Users will have view-only access to the dashboard with the following security measures:
- Interaction options are disabled when you share dashboards externally. For details about interaction options, see Interacting with dashboards and Interacting with reports.
- Any IP restrictions configured in your Zendesk instance will be enforced and links will only be accessible from that IP range. For details about IP restrictions, see Restricting access to Zendesk Support and your Help Center using IP restrictions.
- When sharing a dashboard outside Zendesk, all data returned by the dashboard is available to viewers. Dashboard restrictions still apply, but users with Limited viewer and Limited editor permissions will be able to see data outside of their permissions.
This article contains the following topics:
Turning on external link sharing
Before you can start sharing external links, an admin must turn this on from the Explore admin menu.
To turn on external link sharing
- In Explore, click the Settings icon () in the left sidebar.
- Select the Sharing tab.
- Turn on the Public links to dashboards setting.
- Click Save.
You can now create public links to dashboards.
Sharing an external link to a dashboard
To share a dashboard externally
- Depending on where you are in Explore, take one of the following actions:
- From an open dashboard: Click Share.
- From a dashboard in preview mode: Click Share.
- From the dashboards library: Click the options menu () to the right of your dashboard's name and select Share.
- Click Edit.
- In the Public link settings window, click Enable link sharing.
- In the Password field, enter a secure password for the dashboard. The
password must have at least:
- 10 characters
- 1 uppercase character
- 1 lowercase character
- 1 number
- 1 symbol
If you don't want to password-protect the dashboard, clear the Password protected checkbox (not recommended).
Important: If a user attempts to access a password-protected dashboard and enters an incorrect password five times, the dashboard becomes inaccessible for all users for five minutes. - Click Save.
The Share dashboard page indicates that link sharing is now on. You can click Edit to modify your settings or Copy link to copy the dashboard link to your computer's clipboard.
Users can click the link to open the dashboard in a web browser or display the dashboard on a television or monitor.
Disabling external link sharing
You can turn off external link sharing at any time. This is especially useful in situations where you suspect that one or more dashboards with sensitive data have been inappropriately shared externally.
When you turn off external link sharing, any existing shared links are disabled. If you decide to re-enable external link sharing, you will need to create new external links for any dashboards you want to share.
To disable external link sharing
- In Explore, open the Admin menu () in the left panel, then select Dashboard sharing permissions ().
- On the Dashboard sharing permissions page, deselect Enable creating public links to dashboards.
- Click Save.
22 comments
bctsupport
Hi,
When I "publicly" share a dashboard and add a password then the link works fine when I paste it in the Firefox address bar.
However, when I put this link in a Guide article the same link doesn't work. It seems to redirect to our Guide homepage. Even when I check 'open in new tab' the link doesn't work. Again, when I copy it from the link and paste it in Firefox, the dashboard appears.
Any insights? (pun intended for those migrating ;-) )
0
Elissa Tikalsky
Hi Harold,
This is a creative workflow! I like it!
We did some testing and having a link to a dashboard in a Guide article as you mentioned did work when we tested. I'm curious if it is something permissions related. I'd like to take this into a ticket if you don't mind and do some troubleshooting with you directly?
Let me know if you're still having this problem and if you'd like me to create a ticket for you to do further troubleshooting!
Thanks!
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bctsupport
Hi Elissa,
Sorry for not responding sooner. I've created a ticket a while back and it's being researched by te Guide dev team. It probably has to do with hostmapping
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Elissa Tikalsky
Hi Harold,
No problem at all! I'm glad you're getting that figured out with our team!
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Brandon Niblock
I love this option. I am running into an issue with it though.
I am utilizing this with a wallboard for the entire floor to see. I have it setup on a screen/pc that never falls asleep and set with an auto refresher that hits every 3 minutes to keep the data updated. It works great for about an hour and then the data from the datasets stops loading after it refreshes, its almost like it disconnects from the dataset. Anything on the dashboard that isn't pulling from the dataset still works.
This obviously makes our wallboards not work if the data breaks after an hour.
Any help?
0
John DiGregorio
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It's too bad you need to setup a dashboard for each customer. It would be great if you could create one dashboard to expose on the community and have it limit the results to the logged in company/user. I have been embedding the password in the URL I send out but it would be nice for the customer to be able to log into the community and get this information directly. We are looking at trying to create something through code but having to manage 600 dashboards is a nightmare
1
Mark Molloy
When I share a dashboard, are the contents static? For example, I share a dashboard the sums article views on Wednesday. Articles are viewed for the rest of the seek. If the person I shared the dashboard with runs dashboard, do they see updated results or the results from Wednesday? Do I have to re-run the dashboard and re-share it?
0
Jacqui T
When sharing a dashboard the time filters don't seem to work - data filters update as expected, but changing anything on the time filter doesn't update the reports. Is there any way to enable time filters to work on a shared dashboard?
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Justin H
Hey Jacqui,
Are you using bookmarks to capture the desired time range in this dashboard?
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Jacqui T
Hi Justin,
I can't remember what the issue was now, but I think we did solve it.
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Ilaria
Jacqui T do you have any tip to fix this? I have the same issue unfortunately...
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Jacqui T
Hi Ilaria,
I don't have access to the dashboard now as it was a client's one, but I think it was a mistake I'd made where I hadn't selected the right time filter.
Frustrating that I can't remember exactly, I mainly remember the 'face palm' feeling when I spotted the rookie error!
0
Anais
I am an admin, but I can't access that feature in the admin panel. Am I missing something?
0
Gabriel Manlapig
Please make sure that you have the appropriate subscription plan that supports this feature. For reference, please see below screenshot:
To view subscription information for your account, please see this article: Viewing plan subscriptions.
I hope that helps. Thank you!
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Boyce Worley
Could someone clarify the comment in this article that states:
The link takes you to the page discussing using filters and what not. This seems to indicate that the consumer of the shared report wouldn't be able to adjust the filters. However, when I tested it appears that they all work fine for the person with whom the dashboard was shared.
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Colin Hutzan
I only see the public link (and end user email delivery) option on the legacy builder. The beta builder, which you have a time limit for all users to migrate to before you deprecate the legacy builder, does not have these options that I can see. Can you confirm? I need to be able to give links to our customers for them to view performance data related to themselves. How will this be possible after the beta builder is the only dashboard option?
1
Julia DiGregorio
Can you please clarify whether I can use one link for all customers or whether I need to create one for each customer. Shouldn't the visibility on the contact level control the data they can see?
0
Chad Susa (Gravity CX - Zendesk Partner)
I'm also confused about the comment above as my end users can interact with the dashboard filters (from Boyce Worley) :
I've shared a dashboard with an End User, but when they view the dashboard, they can interact with all dashboard filters. The linked article doesn't explain anything about what end users can and can't interact with on shared dashboards.
Even if I share the link to the dashboard with someone that is not an End User (doesn't have a Zendesk profile), they can still interact with the filters.
Also, Colin Hutzan - You can share externally (with restrictions) from the Beta dashboard builder. In the dashboard, click the dropdown next to the Share (blue) button. Then a Get Link should appear….I think this is plan dependant though…so if you don't see it, you might not have the feature on your plan.
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Mary Teachout
We recently enabled external link sharing while using Dashboard Beta so that we could share dashboards with our end users and restrict the data they see to their specific organization. Unfortunately, it seems that our user's browsers are storing their end-user credentials (that do not have access to Explore) so when they use the link and password in a browser that they have already logged into, they get this error:
“Uh oh… It looks like you don't have permission to access Explore. Contact your Zendesk Administrator for details.”
So far we've been advised to use either an incognito browser or to have our users clear their cache/cookies each time they try to use the link. Both of these are somewhat inconvenient from a user perspective. Has anyone else experienced this issue or have a better solution in mind?
1
Walter Bellante
Hello Mary Teachout ,
I am sorry for the issue you are encountering when consuming externally shared dashboards.
Can you please create a ticket so I can share it with my team?
Regards,
Walter
0
Mary Teachout
Hi Walter Bellante, thank you for your reply. We have actually created a ticket already! You can find the details in ticket # 12731115.
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JGupta
I've created a public share link to share a dashboard with an external customer. Is there a way to also enable them to use the drill-in feature I've enabled on some of the reports in the dashboard?
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