Cards

Cards are one way of quickly adding custom content for your users.

You can add three types of cards to your dashboard: partial, metric, and chartkick.

Base settings

All cards have some standard settings like id, which must be unique, label and description. The label will be the title of your card, and description will show a tiny question mark icon on the bottom right with a tooltip with that description.

Each card has its own cols and rows settings to control the width and height of the card inside the dashboard grid. They can have values from 1 to 6.

class UsersMetric < Avo::Dashboards::MetricCard
  self.id = 'users_metric'
  self.label = 'Users count'
  self.description = 'Users description'
  self.cols = 1
  self.rows = 1
  self.display_header = true
end

Control the aggregation using ranges

You may also want to give the user the ability to query data in different ranges. You can control what's passed in the dropdown using the' ranges' attribute. The array passed here will be parsed and displayed on the card. All integers are transformed to days, and other string variables will be passed as they are.

You can also set a default range using the initial_range attribute.

The ranges have been changed a bit since version 2.8. The parameter you pass to the range option will be directly passed to the options_for_select helper, so it behaves more like a regular select_tag.

class UsersMetric < Avo::Dashboards::MetricCard
  self.id = 'users_metric'
  self.label = 'Users count'
  self.initial_range = 30
  self.ranges = {
    "7 days": 7,
    "30 days": 30,
    "60 days": 60,
    "365 days": 365,
    Today: "TODAY",
    "Month to date": "MTD",
    "Quarter to date": "QTD",
    "Year to date": "YTD",
    All: "ALL"
  }
end

Keep the data fresh

If this dashboard is something that you keep on the big screen, you need to keep the data fresh at all times. That's easy using refresh_every. You pass the number of seconds you need to be refreshed and forget about it. Avo will do it for you.

class UsersMetric < Avo::Dashboards::MetricCard
  self.id = 'users_metric'
  self.refresh_every = 10.minutes
end

Hide the header

In cases where you need to embed some content that should fill the whole card (like a map, for example), you can choose to hide the label and ranges dropdown.

class UsersMetric < Avo::Dashboards::MetricCard
  self.id = 'users_metric'
  self.display_header = false
end

Metric card

The metric card is your friend when you only need to display a simple big number on your dashboard. To generate one run bin/rails g avo:card:metric users_metric.

Calculate results

To calculate your result, you may use the query method. After you make the query, use the result method to store the value displayed on the card.

In the query method you have access to a few variables like context (the App context), params (the request params), range (the range that was requested), dashboard (the current dashboard the card is on), and current card.

class UsersMetric < Avo::Dashboards::MetricCard
  self.id = 'users_metric'
  self.label = 'Users count'
  self.description = 'Some tiny description'
  self.cols = 1
  # self.rows = 1
  # self.initial_range = 30
  # self.ranges = {
  #   "7 days": 7,
  #   "30 days": 30,
  #   "60 days": 60,
  #   "365 days": 365,
  #   Today: "TODAY",
  #   "Month to date": "MTD",
  #   "Quarter to date": "QTD",
  #   "Year to date": "YTD",
  #   All: "ALL",
  # }
  # self.prefix = '$'
  # self.suffix = '%'
  # self.refresh_every = 10.minutes

  def query
    from = Date.today.midnight - 1.week
    to = DateTime.current

    if range.present?
      if range.to_s == range.to_i.to_s
        from = DateTime.current - range.to_i.days
      else
        case range
        when 'TODAY'
          from = DateTime.current.beginning_of_day
        when 'MTD'
          from = DateTime.current.beginning_of_month
        when 'QTD'
          from = DateTime.current.beginning_of_quarter
        when 'YTD'
          from = DateTime.current.beginning_of_year
        when 'ALL'
          from = Time.at(0)
        end
      end
    end

    result User.where(created_at: from..to).count
  end
end

Decorate the data using prefix and suffix

Some metrics might want to add a prefix or a suffix to display the data better.

class UsersMetric < Avo::Dashboards::MetricCard
  self.id = 'users_metric'
  self.prefix = '$'
  self.suffix = '%'
end

Chartkick card

A picture is worth a thousand words. So maybe a chart a hundred? Who knows? But creating charts in Avo is very easy with the help of the chartkick gem.

You start by running bin/rails g avo:card:chartkick users_chart.

class UserSignups < Avo::Dashboards::ChartkickCard
  self.id = 'user_signups'
  self.label = 'User signups'
  self.chart_type = :area_chart
  self.description = 'Some tiny description'
  self.cols = 2
  # self.rows = 1
  # self.chart_options = { library: { plugins: { legend: { display: true } } } }
  # self.flush = true
  # self.legend = false
  # self.scale = false
  # self.legend_on_left = false
  # self.legend_on_right = false

  def query
    points = 16
    i = Time.new.year.to_i - points
    base_data =
      Array
        .new(points)
        .map do
          i += 1
          [i.to_s, rand(0..20)]
        end
        .to_h

    data = [
      { name: 'batch 1', data: base_data.map { |k, v| [k, rand(0..20)] }.to_h },
      { name: 'batch 2', data: base_data.map { |k, v| [k, rand(0..40)] }.to_h },
      { name: 'batch 3', data: base_data.map { |k, v| [k, rand(0..10)] }.to_h }
    ]

    result data
  end
end

Chart types

Using the self.chart_type class attribute you can change the type of the chart. Supported types are line_chart, pie_chart, column_chart, bar_chart, area_chart, and scatter_chart.

Customize chart

Because the charts are being rendered with padding initially, we offset that before rendering to make the chart look good on the card. To disable that, you can set self.flush = false. That will set the chart loose for you to customize further.

After you set flush to false, you can add/remove the scale and legend. You can also place the legend on the left or right using legend_on_left and legend_on_right.

These are just some of the predefined options we provide out of the box, but you can send different chartkick options to the chart using chart_options.

If you'd like to use Groupdate, Hightop, and ActiveMedian you should require them in your Gemfile. Only chartkick is required by default.

chart.js is supported for the time being. So if you need support for other types, please reach out or post a PR (🙏 PRs are much appreciated).

Partial card

You can use a partial card to add custom content to a card. Generate one by running bin/rails g avo:card:partial custom_card. That will create the card class and the partial for it.

class ExampleCustomPartial < Avo::Dashboards::PartialCard
  self.id = "users_custom_card"
  self.cols = 1
  self.rows = 4
  self.partial = "avo/cards/custom_card"
  # self.display_header = true
end

You can embed a piece of content from another app using an iframe. You can hide the header using the self.display_header = false option. That will render the embedded content flush to the container.

# app/avo/cards/map_card.rb
class MapCard < Avo::Dashboards::PartialCard
  self.id = "map_card"
  self.label = "Map card"
  self.partial = "avo/cards/map_card"
  self.display_header = false
  self.cols = 2
  self.rows = 4
end

<!-- app/views/avo/cards/_map_card.html.erb -->
<iframe src="https://www.google.com/maps/embed?pb=!1m14!1m12!1m3!1d17991.835132857846!2d-73.98926852562143!3d40.742050491245955!2m3!1f0!2f0!3f0!3m2!1i1024!2i768!4f13.1!5e0!3m2!1sen!2sro!4v1647079626880!5m2!1sen!2sro" width="100%" height="100%" style="border:0;" allowfullscreen="" loading="lazy"></iframe>