As a Creator, looking over someone else’s work can be like trying to crawl into their brain. You are trying to understand what they did, why they did it, and how to make changes. You often have to check in multiple places. And, there are times when you are under a deadline to fix a dashboard or make changes.
Below are two scenarios around inheriting dashboards – if a new owner is identified while the current owner is still in a role and if you’ve inherited a dashboard without any documentation.
New Owner Identified
If a new owner has been identified, a hand-off meeting ensures a seamless transition. Below are the steps that should occur before, during, and after the hand-off meeting.
- Set up a meeting with the person inheriting the workbook; if no one is inheriting in the short-term, leverage the dashboard documentation best practices.
Before the hand-off meeting
- Person handing off
- Ensure all fields are named in a way that makes sense. For example, instead of ID (copy) (CNTD) name the field “count distinct of ID”.
- Leverage comments for robust lineage.
- Facilitate introduction between the person taking over and business owner(s).
- Person taking over
- Download a desktop version of the workbook. Pay attention to any fields you may have questions about, such as ambiguously named fields or calculations. Make sure to go to Dashboard -> Actions to see if any actions are applying to the dashboard.
During meeting
- When meeting to hand off a workbook, cover the following:
- What is the data source? Where is it located? How often does it update? Are there data quality concerns? Are there important business context/rules that went into the queries, data model relationships, or calculations?
- Do requirements exist? If so, where are they or who may be able to help?
- Who was the report created for? Does it have an owner or sponsor from the business?
- What was the context behind creating the dashboard? What was the originating request?
- How is the dashboard being used? What are the decisions being made? If the dashboard is inaccurate or unavailable, what is the impact?
- Is there anything unique about this dashboard? For example, does it utilize row level security?
- Are there pieces that require manual intervention on some frequency? For example, are there static tables or hard coded values?
- It may be helpful to record the meeting on Teams or Zoom to reference later.
After meeting
- Update the owner of the workbook from you to the person taking over.
Inherited Without Documentation
There are times when a Creator may inherit a dashboard without documentation. To limit the amount of hair-pulling, below are seven steps (and tips) on how to understand someone else’s work.
- Do a sanity check.
- Does this dashboard work? Is it being used? Start by reviewing usage; if it is being used, click around the dashboard and make sure everything works as expected. This includes filters, navigation, understanding what each visual represents, and schedule(s).
- Tip: When reviewing the visuals, make note of any hard coded axis.
- Does this dashboard work? Is it being used? Start by reviewing usage; if it is being used, click around the dashboard and make sure everything works as expected. This includes filters, navigation, understanding what each visual represents, and schedule(s).
- Confirm data source access
- You might need to change the data source credentials to your credentials. Go to the data source tab and open each source to make sure it connects. When you republish the dashboard, make sure to “embed credentials” and that your credentials load correctly.
- Tip: When possible, use team credentials, like a service account, instead of personal credentials.
- You might need to change the data source credentials to your credentials. Go to the data source tab and open each source to make sure it connects. When you republish the dashboard, make sure to “embed credentials” and that your credentials load correctly.
- Look at data source filters
- Filters applied directly to the data source don’t show up on the normal filter pane. They’re easy to miss. Check the filters on each data source and make sure you understand what they do.
- Tip: Make sure data source filters are mentioned in your documentation.
- Filters applied directly to the data source don’t show up on the normal filter pane. They’re easy to miss. Check the filters on each data source and make sure you understand what they do.
- Check out the dashboard actions
- If you click on a viz in your dashboard, do the other vizzes filter? If so, that’s a dashboard action. From a dashboard, open the Actions dialog box and make sure you understand what each action is doing. Remember, if you add new sheets to the dashboard, the action(s) may automatically apply – you will need to go back and manually remove them if they’re not relevant.
- Tip: Don’t use default names for actions. Action names should make it clear what they do and which sheet(s) they should be applied to. For example, “Filter Map from Bar Chart Click” instead of “Filter Action (1)”.
- If you click on a viz in your dashboard, do the other vizzes filter? If so, that’s a dashboard action. From a dashboard, open the Actions dialog box and make sure you understand what each action is doing. Remember, if you add new sheets to the dashboard, the action(s) may automatically apply – you will need to go back and manually remove them if they’re not relevant.
- Find hidden objects
- Sometimes sheets on the dashboard are not immediately visible – they could be controlled by dynamic zone visibility or hidden behind floating objects. In the dashboard sheet pane, click through each sheet one-by-one and make sure you know where each one is used.
- Understand calculations
- Look at the logic of each calculated field and figure out what it does and how it’s used.
- Tip #1: If you want to see some of the places a calculated field is used, try to delete it. (Don’t actually delete it! Click “cancel” instead of delete when the dialog box opens). When “Are you sure?” pops up, you’ll see a partial list of other fields and sheets the field appears in. To identify exactly what other fields rely on the calculated field, make a backup copy of the workbook and delete the calculated field. Fields that use it will get a red exclamation point next to them.
- Tip #2: Use a common prefix names such as c.fieldname or group your fields using folders to clarify how sets of fields are used. Depending on the number of Creators on a team, it may be helpful to set standards as a team around calculations.
- Look at the logic of each calculated field and figure out what it does and how it’s used.
- Identify hard coded values
- There are times when a Creator hard codes values in the data source, a calculation, or even by setting a filter to a specific year. Identify if any values are hard coded and how they can be changed. For example, instead of setting fiscal year to 2025, create a calculation where year(today())=year([date field]).