Dashboards vs. Saved Reports: When Should You Use Each?
Both dashboards and saved reports help you analyze and share data, but they serve different purposes.
Saved Reports
Use a saved report when you want to create and share a single report. Saved reports can be stored and shared with others, making them useful for focused discussions or one-time data reviews.
Examples:
- Sharing a report for an upcoming PLC meeting
- Showing growth between two assessments
Dashboards
Use a dashboard when you want to organize and view multiple reports in one place. Dashboards are designed to help teachers and leaders quickly monitor important information over time. Because dashboards are meant to highlight key information, it’s best to limit the number of dashboards you create. Having too many dashboards can make it harder for teachers and leaders to find what they need quickly, so focus on creating a small set of dashboards that surface the most important information.
Examples:
- Tracking multiple school improvement goals over time
- Bringing together links, guiding questions, priority standards, and related assessments
Sharing Dashboards
If a dashboard is set to Public, you can share its link from the Resources folder with users who may not have the specific access permissions. They will still be able to view the dashboard through the shared link.
Common Dashboards
District: District wide reports for district leaders.
- Access: District leaders can access this dashboard from the Reports tab.
- Building leaders will not have access to this dashboard; however, they can view it if a public link is shared with them.
School: School and district level reports for building leaders
- Access: Building and District Leaders can locate this on the School Dashboard Page.
- Use the Dynamic School Cohort to pull data for each individual school.
- District-level data and reports can still be included in this dashboard.
Class: Class level reports for teachers
- Access: Teachers, Building, and District Leaders can locate this on the Class Dashboard Page.
- Use the Dynamic Class Cohort to pull data for each individual class.
Student: Student level reports
- Access: Teachers, building, and district leaders can view this dashboard on the Student Dashboard page.
- Use the Dynamic Student Cohort to pull data for each individual student.
Specialized Dashboards
Course: Designed for district grade-level reporting and analysis.
- Access: District leaders can access this dashboard from the Reports tab.
- This is more of a niche dashboard, and likely won’t be necessary for your district.
School Course:
- Access: Building Leaders, District leaders can see it on the School Dashboard page.
- This dashboard is useful for schools with varying grade spans (e.g., K–2, 3–4, 3–5). It automatically includes only the schools that have the published course, unlike the School Dashboard, where schools must be manually selected.
