Most stories, sheets and dashboards start in a conversation: you ask, and share the answer as one. But sometimes you know what you want before you ask anything — a weekly dashboard with three charts, a board update with a few figures, a sheet of targets to compare against. New sheet, doc or dashboard starts one empty, and you fill it yourself, piece by piece.
What you’ll need
- A plan that includes Data home — see pricing. Without it, New sheet, doc or dashboard stays in the sidebar and says it isn’t included in your plan.
- For each kind, a plan that includes it: publishing for a doc, dashboards for a dashboard, sheets for a sheet.
Start one
- Click New sheet, doc or dashboard in the left sidebar, just under New conversation. (In Data home, + New at the top does the same.)
- Choose what to start:
- Sheet from a file — upload a file; it opens as a sheet, with its co-pilot beside it.
- Empty sheet — start blank, then paste rows, add a dataset, or copy a table in.
- Doc — a document you write, with figures from your data.
- Dashboard — tiles that stay current.
- It opens straight away, as your own draft:
- a doc as Untitled doc, with an empty summary and the “How this was counted” appendix every story keeps;
- a dashboard as Untitled dashboard, with one note: “Pin a chart from a chat to add a tile.”;
- an empty sheet as Untitled sheet: “This sheet is empty: add a table to start.”
Retitle it like any story, dashboard or sheet.
Fill it
In a doc or dashboard, click + Add. In a sheet, click + Add table. Then choose what to add:
| In a doc | In a dashboard | In a sheet |
|---|---|---|
| Section — a heading | Find data for a tile — from your words | Table from data — one of your datasets |
| Note — a passage of text | Tile from a dataset | Paste rows — from a spreadsheet |
| Find data for a figure — from your words | Note | Copy another sheet’s table |
| From a dataset — as a table or a chart | Copy from another piece | |
| Copy from another piece |
- Find data for a figure (or tile). Say what it should show — “orders by channel”, “weekly revenue by region” — and click Find data. BumbleB Crunch™ picks the dataset that holds it and the view that sums it, and draws it. If it needs to know more, the figure waits in its place with a question and a few choices; click one, or answer in your own words. If none of your data holds it, it says why, and what the nearest data you have does hold. Say it another way asks again.
- From a dataset. Find the dataset, give it a title, and choose Show as: a table, or a bar, line, area or pie chart, with the column for each axis.
- Paste rows. Copy rows from a spreadsheet, the first line their column names, and paste them. Up to 1,000 rows; for more, upload a file.
- Copy from another piece. Pick one of your docs or dashboards, then the figure, tile or table to copy.
Each addition is saved as a new draft version, so Versions can always take it back. If something can’t be added, you’re told why, and nothing is half-added.
Heads up: a chart from a dataset draws the dataset’s rows as they are. Charting raw orders by channel draws every order, not a total per channel. Pick a dataset already summed by what you chart (a sheet’s saved view, say), use Find data, or ask in a conversation for the figure you want and pin it.
How to tell it worked
Your new piece is listed under Published in Data home, marked Draft v1 and up, and its versions start with “Started empty”. Nobody else sees it until you publish and share it.
Good to know
- Pinning still works. An empty dashboard fills the same way any other does: click Pin on a chart in a conversation. See Publish a dashboard.
- Your clickstream isn’t offered under From a dataset. Ask about it in a conversation, or use Find data.
- Publishing and sharing work as for any story, dashboard or sheet — see Publish and share a data story.
Related
- Sheets — pivot, chart and ask the co-pilot.
- Publish a dashboard — tiles, filters and sharing.
- Publish and share a data story — sharing, versions and readers.