Act-On Analytics: Liveboards

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A Liveboard is a live dashboard: a collection of related Answers (reports, charts, and tables) displayed together. Build Liveboards from scratch, or start from one of the standard Liveboards Act-On ships and customise it. You can filter, schedule, present, and download any Liveboard.

Who does this: Any Analytics user (most features require Dynamic Business Analytics or Premium AI Analytics)
Time needed: 5 minutes to pin a first Answer, 15 to 30 minutes for a polished Liveboard
Why this matters: Individual Answers are useful, but a shared, filtered view across several Answers is what teams actually work from. Liveboards let you build that shared view once, apply filters across the whole board, schedule it out by email, or present it in a meeting without switching tools.
Quick Reference (Advanced Users) - Click to Expand
Try it like this: Copy the standard Email Performance Liveboard (Library > filter by Liveboards, Author Act-On Software > ellipsis > Make a copy), rename it, change the default Send date filter to "Last 30 Day(s)", and remove any tiles you don't need. Schedule a PDF to yourself weekly, and you have a repeatable snapshot without building anything from scratch.
Note: Some features on this page require the Dynamic Business Analytics or Premium AI Analytics packages. Contact your Account Manager to upgrade. See the Act-On Analytics Overview for how to tell which tier you have.

Open Analytics at Reports > Analytics.

Create your own Liveboard

Build a Liveboard by choosing Answers and pinning them.

  1. On the Analytics Home page, from the Library at the bottom, open an Answer you want in your new Liveboard.
  2. At the upper right, click Pin.

Pin button on an Answer

Or click the name of an existing Liveboard or tab.

Existing Liveboards in the Pin dialog

  1. In the dialog that appears, click + Create Liveboard, type a name, click the check mark on the right (it highlights blue), and click Pin.

Create Liveboard in the Pin dialog

  1. Your new Liveboard is now available from the Home page with your chosen Answer tile.
  2. To add more tiles, open the next Answer and click Pin at the top right. Your new Liveboard is pre-selected as the last one used.

Pinning another Answer to the same Liveboard

Edit the Liveboard layout

Click the ellipsis > Edit to move and resize tiles. For example, rearrange to fit a newly added larger tile.

Moving and resizing Liveboard tiles

Click Save (top right) when you're done.

Filter the Liveboard's data

Add filters to affect the Answers across your Liveboard together, for example, to show data from the last 90 days.

  1. Open the Liveboard. At the upper right, click the ellipsis > Edit.
  2. At the top, click Add filter and choose what to filter on from the list on the left (search is available).
  3. In the dialog, set the values and options.

Filter dialog with values and options

  1. In Applicable to, choose which tiles and tabs the filter applies to.

Applicable to section in the filter dialog

  1. Click Apply.
  2. Repeat to add more filters. To remove a filter, hover over it and click the X on the right.

Click Save when you're done.

More Liveboard edit options

More options are available when editing a Liveboard (open, then click Edit at the upper left):

Tabs

Too many tiles in your Liveboard? Create tabs, for example, for supporting data you don't need visible all the time. At the top, click + Add tab and type a name.

Adding a tab to a Liveboard

The new tab is available to select when pinning Answers to the Liveboard as described above.

Notes

Add context about the tiles on your Liveboard, for example, to explain the data or link to further reading. Text, link, picture, and table options are available.

Notes editor on a Liveboard

You can also embed content using an iFrame:

  1. On the right of the toolbar, click Insert > Embed iFrame.
  2. Paste the embed code for your content. This can be a video, a PDF, or a Figma file.
  3. To resize the embedded content, select the edges and drag.

Name and description

Click the Liveboard's name and description to edit them.

Editing a Liveboard name and description

Schedule a Liveboard

Share Liveboards on a schedule by email, including with colleagues who don't have access to Act-On Analytics.

  1. Open the Liveboard. At the upper right, click the ellipsis > Schedule > Create Schedule.
  2. In the Create schedule dialog, enter or select:
    • Name. Does not appear in the email sent.
    • Add comment. Appears in the email sent.
    • Frequency. Select when and how often to share.
    • Type. Select PDF to share charts and tables. Select CSV to share data for offline analysis.
    • Gating condition. Write a statement that returns a boolean (for example, whether there is enough data to report on). At the scheduled time, if the condition is true, the Liveboard is shared.
    • Select attachment type. Choose how the data is shared in the email. PDF gives you formatting options and lets you include or omit specific parts of the Liveboard.
    • Recipients. Enter email addresses. Non-Act-On users are supported. You may see an "email not found" warning, but the email can still be added.
  3. Click Create.
Note: Scheduled emails are sent from reports@alerts.act-on.com. Add this address to your address book (and ask recipients to do the same) to avoid spam filtering. Scheduled Liveboards use the default filters. To ship with custom filters, either use the PDF options to override, or make a copy of the Liveboard, apply the filters as defaults on the copy, and schedule that one.

Manage Liveboard schedules

To edit an existing schedule, open the Liveboard. At the upper right, click the ellipsis and select Manage schedules. Open the schedule and edit as above.

Manage schedules dialog

Liveboard viewing options

Adjust Liveboard filters

When viewing a Liveboard, filters can be adjusted on the fly, for example, to show data from the last month.

Adjusting a Liveboard filter while viewing

Download a PDF

To download a PDF of the Liveboard (for a report or an email attachment), view the Liveboard, at the top right click the ellipsis > Download PDF, pick the options you want, and click Download.

Present the Liveboard

To present a Liveboard like a slideshow, view the Liveboard, at the top right click the ellipsis, and select Present. The Liveboard displays full screen. Move through slides with arrow keys or the buttons at the top right.

Standard Liveboards from Act-On

Act-On ships standard Liveboards to get you started, including:

Use them as they are, or as a starting point for your own:

  1. On the Analytics Home tab, in the Library list, use the filters to show only Liveboards and choose author Act-On Software.
  2. Open the Liveboard you want to start from, at the top right click the ellipsis > Make a copy.

Make a copy on a standard Liveboard

  1. Rename the copy and edit it as described above.
Tip: The Act-On Analytics Walkthrough builds a custom Liveboard end-to-end and is a good reference if you want a worked example.

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