Using Historical Analytics

Overview

Historical Analytics dashboards are made up of individual tiles. Each tile displays selected data in a selected format. To view available dashboards, you need a Viewer or Creator license. When viewing a dashboard, you can filter the data using the filters at the top of the dashboard.

If you have a Creator license, you can also create, edit, and manage your own custom dashboards.

For information about available default dashboards, see Default Historical Analytics dashboards.

For information about licenses, see Historical Analytics.

Explore From Here

Explore From Here lets you investigate the data behind a single tile without making any changes to the dashboard. It opens the underlying data in Looker Explore mode, where you can test filters, try pivots, and change visualizations. Any changes you make are temporary and are not saved to the dashboard.

Use Explore From Here when you want to:

Understand what is behind a specific tile's result.
Validate data before making permanent changes.
Test filters or visualization types without affecting the shared dashboard.

To use Explore From Here, click the More actions (⋮) in the top-right corner of a tile and select Explore from here.

Editing dashboards

If you want to make permanent changes to a dashboard, use Edit Dashboard instead. See the Editing custom Historical Analytics dashboards section below.

Editing custom Historical Analytics dashboards

If you have a Creator license, you can edit custom dashboards. To start editing a new or existing custom dashboard, click Edit Dashboard.

When in edit mode, you can:

Add new text or visualization tiles.
Add filters and change dashboard settings.
Resize and rearrange tiles.

Anyone with a Creator license can perform all actions listed in the dashboard menu. Anyone with a Viewer license can only download a dashboard, reset filters, and change the viewer's time zone.

Default dashboards

Default dashboards are read-only. To modify a default dashboard, copy it first and save the copy as a new custom dashboard.

Public and private custom dashboards

By default, all new custom dashboards are public and visible to all users with a Historical Analytics license. You can set a custom dashboard as private, making it visible only to you.

To change a dashboard's visibility setting, click the Dashboard settings button (cog icon) and select or deselect the Private checkbox.

For more information, see Public and private custom dashboards.

Creating a new Historical Analytics dashboard

To create a new dashboard, you need a Creator license.

Go to the Insights menu on the left and select Historical Analytics.
Click Create dashboard.
Provide a name for your new dashboard and click Confirm. The new dashboard is empty and saved in your collection of custom dashboards.

Creating a new tile in a custom Historical Analytics dashboard

To add a tile to your dashboard:

Click Edit dashboard, either in the center of an empty dashboard or from the menu in the top-right corner.
When the dashboard is in edit mode, click Add, either in the center of an empty dashboard or from the configuration bar in the top-left corner.
Choose a tile type from the following options.

Saving tiles

When you add or modify a tile, you must save both the tile and the dashboard. Unsaved changes are lost.

Tile types

Tile type	Description

Tile type	Description
Visualization	Displays data from a chosen explore in a chosen visualization type. Also referred to as a query tile in Looker documentation. When creating a visualization tile, first choose an explore depending on the data you want to display: Agent Events, Groups, Interaction Events, Interaction Summary, Skills, Users, or another type available to you.
Text	Displays static text (title, subtitle, and body) on the dashboard. Used to describe the dashboard or a section of it.
Markdown	Displays formatted text using Markdown syntax. Supports links, tables, images, and basic formatting. For supported syntax, see Using Markdown in text tiles (Looker help).
Button	Displays a clickable button that links to another dashboard, a documentation page, or an external URL.

Exploring data

After choosing an explore, you can see all available data you can use when creating a tile. On the left, a field picker displays filter-only fields, dimensions, and measures. Use the tooltip alongside each dimension and measure to see its description.

For information about all the fields in each explore, see Historical Analytics fields.

To specify the data that appears in the tile:

Click the required dimensions and measures. In Looker, dimensions appear as blue columns and measures appear as orange columns in the data table.
Click Run to see the data.

For more information about exploring and pivoting data, see Exploring data (Looker help).

Filtering data

To filter results displayed in a data table:

Add dimensions or measures, or both, to the Filters section.
To add a filter, click the filter icon next to the field name.
To change the duration units used to display data, choose Duration Unit from Filter-only fields.
To narrow down your results to a specific number, click Row Limit in the Data section.
Click Run to apply the filters and display the results.

For more information, see Filtering and limiting data (Looker help).

Visualizing data

To choose the visualization type that best suits your needs:

Expand the Visualization section.
On the top bar, choose the type of visualization.
Use the option panel to configure visualization details, such as formatting values, labels, numbers, and color palettes.

For more information about visualization options and settings, see Creating visualizations and graphs (Looker help).

Setting or changing default filter settings

When viewing Historical Analytics dashboards, viewers can filter the data using the available filter settings. Most dashboards have filters that refine data across all tiles. Newly created dashboards do not have filters until configured. Default dashboards are configured with default filter settings.

If you have a Creator license, you can create a new dashboard or copy a default dashboard, then add or modify default filters to meet your requirements.

Filter types

Historical Analytics supports the following filter types.

Filter type	Scope	Behavior

Filter type	Scope	Behavior
Dashboard-level filters	All tiles on the dashboard.	Applied consistently across the entire dashboard. Dashboard-level filters override tile-level filters.
Tile-level filters	A single tile only.	Set in edit mode. Define what data a specific tile displays.
Explore mode filters	Temporary, within a single explore session.	Applied during ad-hoc investigation. Reset after a refresh or the next login.
Schedule delivery filters	Scheduled deliveries only.	Used to tailor reports for specific recipients, for example, by queue or team.

Filter priority

Dashboard-level filters take priority over tile-level filters. For example, if a tile is set to display data for the last 7 days but the dashboard filter is set to the last 14 days, the tile will display data for the last 14 days.

Tiles can be configured to ignore dashboard-level filters when they are intended to show fixed reference values, such as year-to-date totals or baseline metrics. In these cases, select Do not filter when specifying tiles to update.

Managing filters

To add a new filter or change an existing one, ensure the dashboard is in edit mode and contains at least one tile.

Task	Instructions

Task

Instructions

Adding a filter

To add a filter:

Click Filters, and then Add Filter.
Select the dimension you want to filter by.
When you have finished making changes, click Add or Update. To save the entire dashboard, click Save in the top-right corner.

Changing an existing filter

To change an existing filter:

Locate the filter you want to modify.
Click the More actions (⋮) alongside its name and click Edit.
To set the default filter value, change the value in the Configure Default Value field.
To change the filter's title or type, click Control. The options available depend on the type of data you are filtering.
When you have finished making changes, click Add or Update. To save the entire dashboard, click Save in the top-right corner.

Specifying which tiles a filter updates

To specify which tiles a filter updates:

Click Tiles To Update.
In the tile list, select the tiles you want to update.
Select the field you want to filter by and enter the filter value.
If you don't want to apply the filter to specific tiles, select Do not filter.
When you have finished making changes, click Add or Update. To save the entire dashboard, click Save in the top-right corner.

Changing the default time zone

All default dashboards display data in the viewer's time zone, according to their browser configuration.

If you have a Creator license, you can change the default time zone for a new or copied dashboard.

To change the default time zone:

Ensure the dashboard is in edit mode.
Click Settings.
In Timezone, select the new default time zone.
Click Save.
To save the entire dashboard, click Save in the top-right corner.

All data in the dashboard tiles will now be displayed in the selected time zone unless the viewer chooses a different one.

Scheduling delivery of a Historical Analytics dashboard

If a user does not have access to Historical Analytics but you have a Creator or Viewer license, you can send them a copy of a dashboard by email or to an Amazon S3 bucket, either immediately or on a recurring schedule.

For full instructions on creating, editing, and deleting scheduled deliveries, see Working with scheduled deliveries in Historical Analytics.

Downloading data from Historical Analytics dashboards

Anyone with access to Historical Analytics can download dashboard data. The dashboard must be in view mode, not edit mode. You can download either the whole dashboard or an individual tile.

Downloading a whole dashboard

Go to Dashboard actions and click Download.
Choose from the following formats:

Format	Details

Format	Details
PDF	The dashboard is saved as a PDF and looks the same as when viewed in Historical Analytics. We recommend selecting both Expand tables to show all rows and Arrange dashboard tiles in a single column to include the full data set and display data more clearly.
CSV	The dashboard data is downloaded as a ZIP (.zip) file containing multiple CSV (.csv) files. Each CSV file represents a tile on the dashboard. Downloads are limited to the number of rows configured in the tile, up to 5,000. To download more data, download an individual tile instead.

Downloading an individual tile

Click the More actions button next to the tile name and select Download data.
Choose a format. Available formats include TXT, CSV, Excel Spreadsheet, and PNG.
Click Advanced data options (not available for PNG).
Configure the data settings, such as data order, data value format, and the number of rows and columns to include.

Best practice

Always set the Number of rows and columns to include to All results. The All results option is not available if the tile uses table calculations. In that case, either remove the calculated fields or select Custom and specify the maximum number of rows (up to 100,000). Table calculations are represented in green under the Data section.

Deleting custom Historical Analytics dashboards

To delete a custom dashboard, you need a Creator license. You can delete a dashboard in two ways.

	Steps

	Steps
From the dashboards list	Find the dashboard you want to delete. Click the More actions (⋮) in the bottom-right corner of the dashboard. Click Delete. In the dialog that appears, click Delete to confirm or Cancel to cancel.
From an open dashboard	Open the dashboard you want to delete. In the top-right corner, click the More actions (⋮) to open the dashboard menu. Click Move to trash. In the dialog that appears, click Move to trash to confirm or Cancel to cancel.

For more information about managing custom dashboards, see Editing custom dashboards (Looker help).