Building dashboards

Understanding dashboard tools

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, you have access to an integrated dashboard 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 section in your Aura console:

Before creating your dashboard, verify that you’ve loaded the sample movie data in your instance.

Click Create dashboard to begin:

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

You can also 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:

Adding dashboard cards

Dashboard cards are individual components that display specific data visualizations.

Click Add a card to create your first 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:

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:

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.

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: