Dashboard
The purpose of the dashboard is to give a quick insight into data for Quality Assurance. Dashboards are also useful for providing a view of ongoing operations. They are not a substitute for a data analysis system such as Excel or a GIS.
Dashboards also do not have drill-down capability for problem identification. If an anomaly is shown in a dashboard, an AI tool can be used to identify cause and impact.
An Example Smap Dashboard
Managing Panels
Panels have buttons at the top right to resize, edit settings, and delete. These buttons are visible only when you hover over the panel.
Adding Panels
Adding a Panel
Select Add Panel, then select one of the panel types: graph, table, map, or image.
Resizing a Panel
Resizing a Panel
Panels can be shown in two sizes: expanded to the size of the screen, or minimised so multiple panels can be viewed at once.
Editing a Panel
Editing a Panel
Clicking the settings icon opens the same dialog that was used to create the panel. Clicking the "Data View" drawer opens a side panel that allows selection of map layers or subforms in a survey. For a graph created from select question responses, you can choose which options are shown.
Closing a Panel
A panel can be closed by clicking the X at the top right.
Panel Settings
Subject
For all panel types, the default subject is "Data". However, for table and map panels, you can select one of:
Data
User Activity
User Locations
Data shows information collected for a specific survey, including answers to survey-specific questions.
User Activity shows information about the activities of a specific user for all surveys they have submitted. This information includes metadata about each submission:
Location
Survey name
Upload Time
Start Time
End Time
Device
Comments on survey
Instance Name
Scheduled Start (For tasks)
User Locations
For a map panel, this shows the location where each user last refreshed FieldTask. Each user's location is shown as a coloured circle with their user ident in red next to it. The circle colour depends on how long it has been since they refreshed:
less than 1 hour - green
1 hour to 1.5 hours - yellow
1.5 hours to 2 hours - orange
2 hours or more - red
For a table panel, the last refresh time is shown for each user.
Only users who are members of the currently selected project will be shown.
To view user locations, you need the security groups analyst or
view data. If the user only has view data, they are restricted to
viewing only the locations of users with the same security role, or users with
no security role if the dashboard user does not have one.
Warning
If no location is available with the last refresh, the user will not be shown in either the map panel or the table panel.
Survey
Select the survey whose data you want to show. This option is used only with the "Data" subject.
User
Select the user whose activity you want to show. This option is used only with the "User Activity" subject.
Include Read Only
Include read only questions in the panel's data. This option is shown for table and map panels with the "Data" subject.
Graph Panels
After you select the survey, you must select a question to analyse on the graph. Alongside each question, you can select the function that is applied to the data. This can be either:
Percent (The percentage of responses with this value, or the percentage of responses within the group that had this value)
Count (Counts of responses with this value)
There are two graph types:
Histograms (Shown as a Pareto chart - limited to the largest 30 values)
Pie Charts
Data is shown as a time series if you select a time interval. For example, if you select an interval of week, values are shown on a week-by-week basis.
Question types that can be graphed:
select one
select multiple
text
calculates
server calculations
integer
decimal
Map Panels
Whole of Survey View
It is not necessary to select a question. Select the survey and save. The resulting map shows all locations where data was collected. If you click a point, details of the data at that point are shown.
If you have multiple location questions in a survey, you can select the location question to show on the map. Lines, such as those recorded by a geotrace question, are drawn in blue.
User Activity Map
A map with the "User Activity" subject shows the locations of the user's submissions. Each point is numbered. Where points are close together they are combined into a cluster, which is labelled with up to three of the record numbers followed by a count of the rest, for example "10, 9, 8 +3". Zoom in to separate the cluster or click it to see the records.
The map also shows the trail of locations recorded by FieldTask for that user as a blue line. The trail follows the panel's date range, or the dashboard date range if the panel does not have one.
Show On
By default a map panel is shown on its own map, "This Map". Alternatively select another map panel to show this panel's data as a layer on that map. Only map panels that are not themselves shown on another map are listed.
Map view of a select question
When creating the map panel, specify a question to analyse. This works best
for select_one or select_multiple question types.
Question level map view
The locations are colour coded by the share of their records that have the selected choice:
Red: all of them
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue: none of them
The colours apply to one of the choices in the question. To view the results for a different choice, select that choice in the drawer to the right of the map.
A location with a single record is coloured red if the choice was selected, or blue if it was not. A cluster of records, or an area when the map is grouped by regions, is coloured according to the percentage of its records where the choice was selected.
Question level map view zoomed out to show clustering
Group by Regions
Requires Smap Server version 26.11+.
A map with a question can group its records by area instead of showing each location. Each area is then coloured by the share of its records that have the selected choice, in the same way as a cluster of points: red if all of them have it, blue if none do, and orange, yellow or green in between. This gives a quick picture of where an answer is common, for example the share of households in each district that report a problem.
A map without a question can also be grouped by area. Each area then shows how many records it holds, coloured from blue for the area with the fewest records to red for the area with the most.
Record Heatmap on a hexagonal grid
Two kinds of area can be used:
Hex grids - a grid of equal sized hexagons that you create over part of the map
Polygons - the shapes recorded by a geoshape question in the survey, or in another survey in its bundle, such as the boundaries of farms, villages or districts
Each record is placed using the panel's location question, the one selected for the map in the panel's settings.
Choosing the Regions
Set Group by to a grid or a polygon question. This can be done in either of two places:
the panel's settings, where Group by lists the grids under Hex grids and the geoshape questions under Polygons. A question in another survey of the bundle is shown with the name of its survey.
the drawer on the map panel, under Regions. A change made here is saved straight away and the map is redrawn.
When a polygon question is selected, also set Label to the question whose answer names each shape, for example the name of the farm. Without a label the shapes are named by their record number.
Set Group by to None to show the records as points again.
Creating a Hex Grid
Analysts and administrators can create grids:
Open the drawer on a map panel for the survey and go to Regions.
Zoom and pan the map until it shows the area the grid should cover.
Enter a name for the grid and the cell size in metres. The cell size is the length of a side of each hexagon.
Select Create. The grid is added to the Group by lists.
The whole area showing on the map is covered, including places that have no data yet, so data submitted later is counted too. You can create as many grids as you need, for example a coarse grid over the whole project area and a fine grid over a town where there are many records.
A grid can have up to 20,000 cells. If there would be more, use a larger cell size or zoom in to a smaller area.
To delete a grid, select Delete next to it in the drawer and then select it again to confirm. A panel that was grouped by that grid goes back to showing points.
Grids belong to the survey and to the other surveys in its bundle, and can be used by any of their map panels. They are deleted when the last survey in the bundle is erased.
Using Polygons from Surveys
Any geoshape question in the survey, or in another survey in the same bundle, can be used. The shapes can be collected with the other data, for example by recording each farm boundary once in a record of its own, or in a separate survey of boundaries that is added to the bundle. Only the surveys that you have access to are listed.
The label question must be in the same form, of the same survey, as the geoshape question.
Deleted (bad) records are not used as shapes.
If your roles restrict the records you can see in the survey that holds the shapes, only the shapes in those records are used.
Colours and Details
Choose the answer that the colours show in the drawer, in the same way as for points. Click an area to see its details, including the percentage or count of its records with that answer.
Records that are outside every area are not shown.
A record inside two overlapping shapes is counted in both.
Areas with no records are not drawn.
Grouping by area also works with a time series, the areas then show the records in the periods selected.
Time Series Map
When a question is selected you can also set Time Series to hour, day, week, month or year. The records are then grouped into periods of that length using the panel's date question, and the map shows a window of one or more periods.
Controls below the map select which periods are shown:
Interval - how many periods are shown at once
Start - play the periods in order, as an animation
the slider - move to a period
The dates of the periods shown are displayed next to the Start button. Points are coloured and clustered, or grouped by region, in the same way as a map without a time series.
Table Panels
Table panels are useful for viewing all data collected in a survey. They show 200 records at a time, and you can page through all records using the next >>> and previous <<< buttons.
If you open the drawer on a table panel, you can apply actions to the data, such as backing it up or importing new data. Refer to Archiving of Survey Data, Deleting and Restoring Data, and Backup and Import of Survey Data.
Bad Records
Records that have been deleted are marked as "Bad". These are shown in table panels with a light red background. No other panels use bad or deleted records; for example, graphs do not include data from deleted records.
A user can toggle a record from good to bad and back again. To do this, right click on the cell in the "Bad" column for the record and then provide a "Reason" in the dialog.
Record Level Operations
Each record has a menu shown as an ellipsis. Clicking it opens a dialog where the user can:
edit the data
download a PDF of the record
show the record in an expanded view, with each question on its own line
Image panels
Image panels show the images in a survey. Thumbnails are shown at the bottom of the panel; select one to see the full size image.
An image panel
Filters
You can apply filters. This can include a date range filter, where you select the date question and then choose start and end dates. You can also specify an advanced filter for data values.
Dashboard Date Range
Available from SmapServer v26.06. The date range selector in the menu bar applies a relative date range to every panel that does not have a date range of its own: All, Last day, Last week or Last month. This keeps a dashboard showing recent data without having to edit the dates of each panel. The selection is remembered for you in your browser.
Managing Another User's Dashboard
Available from SmapServer v26.06. Administrators see a Manage panels for selector in the menu bar listing the users who have access to the current project. Select a user to see their dashboard and add, change or remove their panels, for example to set up a dashboard for somebody. Select yourself to return to your own dashboard.
Automatic Refresh
This can be enabled by an organisational administrator in the Organisation tab of the settings page. Setting a value of zero disables auto refresh. Otherwise, you can specify the refresh interval in minutes.
Only graphs, maps and "User Locations" tables are refreshed automatically.