Building dashboards with AI

Understanding the Dashboards tool

A dashboard tool transforms raw data into visual representations that anyone can understand, regardless of their technical background.

Think of dashboards as the "storefront window" for your graph data - they display the most important insights in an accessible, visual format that business users can interact with without writing code.

In Aura Dashboards, you have access to an integrated AI tool that allows you to quickly prototype and build production-ready dashboards.

Creating your first dashboard

You will learn how to build a dashboard that visualizes actor relationships in the movie database.

First, navigate to the Dashboards tool in your Aura console:

Before creating your dashboard, make sure your database contains the sample movie data. If you used the provided Cypher script, the Explore tab should display nodes and relationships from the movie dataset. If you imported your own data, ensure it is loaded and visible in the Explore tab before proceeding.

Go to the Dashboards tool and click Create with AI to begin:

In the prompt dialog, enter a description of the insights you want to visualize. As a good practice, be specific about the node labels and relationship types to ensure accurate results. For example, you can enter a description like "Visualize actor relationships in movies." or simply "Actor relationships":

In the dashboard editor, you can customize your dashboard by adding cards, filters, and arranging the layout:

Try to replicate the following steps to create another dashboard:

Rename your dashboard from "New dashboard" to something descriptive like "Movie Analytics Dashboard" by clicking on the title.

Create a new AI generated dashboard by clicking the "Generate with AI" button, which will prompt you to enter a description of the insights you want to visualize. The AI will then generate a dashboard based on your description:

In the end, you should have a dashboard that looks similar to this:

Adding more AI-generated cards

Dashboard cards are individual components that display specific data visualizations.

Click Add a card and create your next visualization:

MATCH (p:Person)-[r:ACTED_IN]->(m:Movie)
WHERE p.name = 'Tom Hanks'
RETURN p,r,m

Your dashboard will display a graph visualization showing Tom Hanks' movie connections:

Editing cards

Production dashboards often require updates as data and requirements evolve.

Once you have created a dashboard card, you can edit it at any time by clicking the three-dot menu on the card and selecting Edit card.

Make the changes you want, then click Save changes to update the card.

Making dashboards interactive with filters

Use static dashboards to present fixed insights, or add interactivity to allow users to explore data dynamically.

Filters allow users to dynamically change what data is displayed without modifying queries.

To add a filter to your dashboard, go to the dashboard view and select Add filter:

For example, create a "Person selection" filter that will control which actor’s data is displayed.

Now update your Actor Overview card query to use the filter parameter:

MATCH (p:Person)-[r:ACTED_IN]->(m:Movie)
WHERE p.name = $person_name
RETURN p,r,m

Save your changes and test the filter:

Your dashboard now responds dynamically to filter selections:

Where dashboards fit in your workflow

Dashboards serve as the bridge between your graph database and business stakeholders.

They enable rapid prototyping of data visualizations and can often become production solutions for organizations that need quick insights without custom application development.

The integrated dashboard tool excels at: