Summary
Widget group: Text Widgets
Displays current snapshot or data over time? Current snapshot
Source data: Field (or metric)
Description: Shows a single number - live numerical data
Use case example: Sum of ARR
Who is this article for?
Planhat Users who are designing Dashboard and Presentation Pages (e.g. CS Ops)
What are KPI widgets?
KPI widgets are a type of Text Widget, each displaying a single live data point: a snapshot of right now.
Here's a couple of examples of KPI Widgets (ringed in green) in Dashboard Pages.
Click the images to view them enlarged
Why use KPI Widgets?
KPI Widgets are great "headline" Widgets - they are typically used near the top of a Dashboard Page to display key values that can be quickly understood.
KPI Widgets carry out simple mathematics for you - they can count the number of records of your choice of model, or calculate the sum or average of your choice of property (field or metric).
Typical examples are:
Sum of Company ARR
Average Company Health Score
Count of Companies
This works particularly well in combination with Widget-specific filters (described in the instructions below). For example, you could make a series of KPI Widgets (using copy/paste to save time) for different Company segments - e.g. total ARR of Gold Accounts in one KPI Widget, total ARR of Silver Accounts in another KPI Widget, and total ARR of Bronze Accounts in another.
The possibilities are almost endless! Here at Planhat, we use KPI Widgets within our Enablement Dashboard to display the total number of students who have enrolled and completed specific training courses, for instance.
How to set up a KPI Widget
The main steps are:
Choose a data model (object) - e.g. Company
Choose either:
To count the number of records (e.g. number of Companies)
Or pick another operation and a property (e.g. sum of Company ARR)
Within a Dashboard or Presentation Page, click on "Text Widgets" and then "KPI"
You'll see a form that looks like this:
In the "Setup" tab
Choose an "Object" (i.e. data model), e.g. Company
In "Value", choose between "sum", "average" and "count"
"count" counts the number of records of that model. (You will note there is no option to select a "Property" if you select "count")
For example, the number of Companies in the Onboarding Phase, or the number of End Users (if End User is your selected model) who have completed a specific course
To get the granular level of detail in the examples above (rather than just counting the number of Companies in total), you need to apply a filter - more on this in step 4
"sum" adds up the values of your choice of "Property" - this is typically a suitable field such as ARR
"average" calculates the mean average of your choice of "Property" - this is typically a suitable field such as CSM Score
In "Name", you can optionally enter a title for your Widget, which will display within the Widget
An alternative, particularly relevant for Presentation Pages, is to use a separate simple Text Widget if you would like different formatting options
In "Description", you can optionally add a description for your Widget
This will show in the Widget as a tooltip on an "i" icon
An alternative could be to use a simple Text Widget alongside your KPI Widget
In the "Customization" tab
Select your choice of "Number Format" out of the options below, to determine how the number in the KPI Widget is displayed
"Default"
"Number (1000)"
"Comma separated (1,000)"
"Decimal" (1,000.00)"
"Short (1k)"
"Custom" - click on the "i" symbol next to "Number Format" to see detailed guidance on number masking
Select your choice of "Font size" from the dropdown list
Here you can make the number bigger than the default size if desired
Click "Add filters" in the top right of the chart preview if you'd like to add a filter
Here you can select a filter so that the KPI Widget shows specific data. So, for example, if you're building a KPI Widget showing the sum of Company ARR, here you can specify that you only want to include SMB Companies, or only Enterprise Companies
You can either select from an existing "Company Filter" ...
... or build an "Advanced Filter" from scratch
When you've finished configuring your KPI Widget, click the orange "Add widget" button in the bottom right
If you want to go back and edit your KPI Widget later on, it's easy to do so. While viewing the Page in Edit mode, mouse over the Widget, and click on the pencil icon to open up the Widget setup form again.
Pro tips
You could color the background of your KPI Widget as appropriate for the data you're displaying, to help viewers more quickly understand it
We've already mentioned an example of coloring KPI Widgets for Gold, Silver and Bronze Accounts
You could also color the background of KPI Widgets showing positive data (such as number of customer advocates, or high NPS scores) as green, with those showing negative data (such as churned Companies) as red
In Presentation Pages, you can layer Widgets on top of each other. A KPI Widget works well layered on top of a Doughnut Chart - you can position the number of the KPI Widget in the "hole" of the Doughnut
When viewing your Page in View mode, you can click on the number of a KPI Widget to open up a table showing its component data
This is a fantastic way for viewers of your Pages to drill down into the data if needed, while at the same time allowing the display on the Page itself to be concise and uncluttered
Comparison with other Widgets
KPI Widgets are fairly unique in that they display a single value.
There are also basic Text Widgets within the "Text Widgets" group, but these do not calculate/display live data like KPI Widgets. They are used in Pages for simple titles and instructions etc.
If you would like to display a percentage share rather than an absolute value, e.g. if you're working towards a target, then you may wish to consider using a Gauge Chart rather than a KPI Widget. For example, a Gauge Chart could show the percentage of Companies with a high Health Score, rather than a KPI Widget showing the number of Companies with a high Health Score.