Explore recipe: Getting to know dashboard filters

What's my plan?

Suite

Professional, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus

Support with

Explore Professional or Enterprise

In this recipe, you'll create a simple report that lists agents and the number of solved tickets for each. You'll then add the report to a dashboard and explore how dashboard filters can allow the report viewer to change the results of your report in the dashboard without changing the underlying report itself. This can be a powerful way to give report viewers the chance to configure reports just how they want. It can also save you time creating multiple reports.

This article contains the following topics:

• Creating the base report and dashboard
• Opening your dashboard
• Adding a time filter
• Adding a data filter
• Adding a change attribute
• Next steps

What you'll need

• Zendesk Explore Professional or Enterprise
• Editor or Admin permissions (see Giving agents access to Explore)
• Ticket and agent data in Zendesk Support

Creating the base report and dashboard

Before you start exploring filters, create your report using the instructions below. The report lists agents and the number of solved tickets for each

To create the report

1. In Explore, click the reports () icon.
2. In the Reports library, click New report.
3. On the Select a dataset page, click Support > Support - Tickets.
4. Click Start report. Explore creates the new report and opens the report builder.
5. In the Metrics panel of the report builder, click Add.
6. From the list of metrics, choose Tickets > Solved Tickets, then click Apply.
7. In the Rows panel, click Add.
8. From the list of attributes, choose Assignee > Assignee name, then click Apply. Explore generates a table showing all your agents and the number of tickets they've solved.
   Tip: If your organization has a lot of agents, consider applying a filter to the Assignee name attribute to select only the names you want.

   

9. Give the report a name, for example, "Dashboard filters test," then click Save > Add to dashboard.
10. On the Save new report to the page, choose a new dashboard, enter a name for the dashboard, for example, "Dashboard filters test," then click Save. Explore creates a new dashboard named "Dashboard filters test" and adds the "Dashboard filters test" report.

Opening your dashboard

1. In Explore, click the dashboards () icon.
2. On the Dashboards page, choose the dashboard you just created, Dashboard filters test.
3. The dashboard opens in preview mode containing the Dashboard filters test report you created. Click Edit to start making changes.

Adding a time filter

Use this filter when you want to enable report viewers to see solved tickets (or any other metric) for a date range they specify.

To add a time filter

1. In the dashboard you just opened, click the + icon, then select Time filter.
2. In the Time filters panel, select the attribute you want to use when selecting a date range. You can only choose from time-based attributes. Choose Ticket solved.
   The time filter is added to your dashboard. You can click the filter to select different periods. For more details about the options on this page, see Adding interactive dashboard components.

Explore recalculates the report and displays the number of tickets solved in the date range you specified.

If you want to delete the time filter before you move on to the following example, click the time filter, and then, in the Time - Ticket solved panel, click the options icon () and select Remove.

Adding a data filter

You can allow report viewers to select from a list of agent names for whom they would like to view solved tickets.

To add a data filter

1. Click the + icon in your dashboard, then select Add data filter.
2. In the Data filters panel, choose the attribute Assignee name. This allows the report viewer to filter the report based on one or more agent names.
   Explore displays the data filter.
3. From the Assignee name drop-down list, choose one or more names that will be shown to the report viewer, then click Apply. (The search bar appears only if the attribute has 15 or more values.)

The report table updates to show only the names you selected.

Adding a change attribute

A change attribute allows agents to display an attribute different from the assignee name. For example, you can change the unsolved tickets report to display unsolved tickets for each channel instead of the assignee name.

To add a change attribute

1. Click the + icon in your dashboard, then select Add change attribute.
2. In the Change attribute panel, configure the following:
   • Dataset: Select the dataset containing the attribute you want to use. You can only select datasets used in a report on your dashboard.
   • Default attribute: Select the attribute that you want dashboard viewers to be able to change.
   • Selectable attributes: Select one or more attributes that the user can use instead of the default attribute.
     
3. When you are finished, click Save.

Explore displays the Change attribute widget. You can now click the Assignee name or Ticket channel buttons to change the attribute displayed in your report.

Next steps

In this article, you've learned what the dashboard filters and components can do. Remember that you don't have to use one filter at a time. You can combine them on the same dashboard to produce powerful interactive reports. To dig deeper into dashboard interactivity, read the following articles:

• Adding interactive dashboard components
• Interacting with dashboards