Dashboards
The dashboard is designed as a live reporting center, showing you pertinent information about your ranch as it stands now and how it is trending over time in key metrics. The dashboard is available on both computers and mobile devices.
On a computer, the dashboard window is always open and has a Quick Access area at the top which can be used to open commonly used areas of the application.
On mobile devices, the dashboard screen is always available by tapping on the Dashboards button in the tab bar at the bottom of the screen. The available ranch values and metrics are identical on computers and mobile devices, giving you the same opportunity to view dashboards at home or in the field.
Refreshing the Dashboards
On a computer, CCIA information, ranch values, and the current year of ranch metrics are automatically updated within a few seconds of any change made in Herdly. All values are automatically refreshed every hour. You can force a complete refresh by clicking the Dashboard button and selecting Refresh Dashboard. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Command-R (Mac) or Control-R (Windows) if the dashboard is the frontmost window.
On a mobile device, pull to refresh the information manually.
Customizing the Dashboards
There are over 100 available values and metrics that can be shown in the dashboard. A handful of these will be shown by default, but you can customize which information is shown and in what order it is shown whenever you want. You may even want to change this throughout the year so the most pertinent information is quickly available.
On a computer, click the Dashboard button and the select Customize Dashboard.... A window will open with a tab at the top, allowing you to switch between the ranch values and the ranch metrics sections. In both sections, a list of possible items that aren't currently showing in the dashboard is shown on the left. The items currently in the dashboard are shown on the right. You can add and remove items by double-clicking them, dragging and dropping them, or by selecting them and clicking one of the arrow buttons located between the lists. You can also reorder the items in the Your Items list by dragging and dropping.
In the Ranch Metrics section, you can also set how many years worth of data you want shown for the ranch metrics items and choose whether to view this information as a graph or in a table. If you view the data in a table, not all items can be shown.
To reset either of the sections to their original default items, click the Defaults button in the section you want to reset. When you are done re-arranging the dashboard items, click Save and the dashboard will be rebuilt.
On a mobile device, tap the Customize button. At the top of the screen you'll be able to switch between the ranch values and ranch metrics sections. In both sections, you can remove an item by tapping the red minus button and you can add an item by tapping the Add Entry... row and selecting an item. You can also rearrange the display order of items by tapping the three-lined button to the right of a cell and dragging the row to a new position.
In the Ranch Metrics section, you can also set how many years worth of data will be graphed. These items cannot be shown as a table on mobile devices.
When you are done customizing the items, tap the Done button and the dashboards will be refreshed.
On a computer there is a horizontal divider line between the ranch values and ranch metrics sections. You can drag this divider up or down so as to give more space to one section or the other. You can also move and re-position the window. Herdly will remember the window position, size, and the position of the horizontal divider for you. If you ever get in a situation where you can't resize or move this window, you can reset its dimensions by going to File > Tech Support Utilities... > Dashboard and clicking the Reset button.
About the Graphs
On a computer, if the dashboard window is frontmost, you can move your mouse over a graph and the data values will be shown if they aren't already. You can also double-click a graph to open it in its own window.
On a mobile device, tapping a graph will display it in landscape mode using the entire screen, making it easier to read in some cases. Once in this mode, swipe left or right to view other graphs or tap the grid button in the upper left of the screen to view all the graphs at once. From there you can tap any graph to go back to full screen.
Dashboard Types
Dashboard information is divided into three types of items:
- CCIA Events. If your ranch is in Canada, it is important to make sure your CCIA events are submitted. This is very simple to do in Herdly. This area of the dashboard lets you know if there are any events that haven't been submitted yet and if there are any events that have errors that need to be taken care of. On a computer, these are indicated by a green (not submitted yet) and red (errors) badge on the CCIA Events button. Click this button to open the CCIA Events window to submit the events or look at the errors. On a mobile device, this information is shown at the top of the dashboard screen.
- Ranch Values. These items represent the current state of your ranch, giving you a quick overview of what things look like right now.
- Ranch Metrics. These items are used to show your ranch trends over time. Each data point is based on some performance metric for a given year so you can compare your ranch's performance year-over-year.
How Does Herdly Calculate These Values?
Herdly is able to show a lot of information in the dashboards with a relatively small amount of data on each animal. However, the dashboard information will only be as accurate as the data entered into Herdly. If you would like to know how how each dashboard is calculated or what fields you need to use so that Herdly can calculate the dashboard information, please see the following topics: