The dashboard: reading the network's state in thirty seconds
Five indicators, one date range, and exactly what each number means.
The dashboard is the web app's first page. It isn't for working: it's for knowing where things stand before deciding what to do with your week.
It has three layers — five indicators at the top, a series of charts in the middle, a per-trail table at the bottom — and one date range that drives all of it.
Where: left navigation bar, under General → Dashboard. It's the page that opens when you log in.
The principle: one snapshot a day
This is the point to understand before anything else, because it explains every surprise.
The dashboard doesn't read your data live. Every night Sentinel compiles a snapshot of the day that just ended — a frozen picture — and it's that series of snapshots the dashboard displays.
Two consequences:
- Today is never shown. The range stops at yesterday at the latest. A task completed this morning shows up tomorrow.
- The numbers don't move while you work. This isn't a real-time dashboard, and that's on purpose: you compare whole days, not moments.
To see the true state right now, open the Tasks and Structures sections. The dashboard is for seeing a trend.
The date range
The header and the five indicators.
- 1The date range drives everything below it.
- 2The line follows the value day by day across the range.
- 3The badge compares with the previous period of the same length.
By default the range covers the last seven days, ending yesterday. It's neither the calendar week nor the current month: it's a rolling window.
You can change it freely, up to a year. The future and today are blocked in the calendar, for the reason above.
Changing the range changes everything: the five indicators, every chart, and the trail table.
The five indicators
They sit side by side at the top. Each carries three things: a number, a small line, and a change badge.
| Indicator | What it is |
|---|---|
| Critical tasks | Tasks with Critical priority that aren't done |
| Open tasks | Every task that isn't done |
| Completed tasks | Tasks completed during the range |
| Structures at risk | Structures at high or moderate risk |
| Overdue reports | Inspections whose due date has passed |
There's a difference in kind worth seeing: four of these are a state, one is a count.
- Critical tasks, open tasks, structures at risk and overdue reports are the state on the last day of the range. Making the range longer doesn't inflate them: they're balances, not sums.
- Completed tasks is the only one that adds up over the range. Double the duration and the number grows.
That's the reading that matters: the first four say "here's what's still on the table", the fifth says "here's what we got through".
The line and the badge
The small line behind the number traces its value day by day across the chosen range. It gives no scale: it gives a shape. A steadily rising line on "Open tasks" is a signal, even when today's number looks acceptable.
The coloured badge compares with the previous period of the same length: seven days against the seven before, a month against the month before. It shows the raw difference, not a percentage.
Its colour follows the meaning of the news, not the sign of the number:
- for four indicators out of five, going up is bad — more critical tasks, open tasks, structures at risk or overdue reports is red;
- for Completed tasks it's the opposite: up is green.
When the difference is zero, the badge disappears.
The charts
Below the indicators, ten charts across four rows. They all rest on the same range.
The first two rows of charts.
- 1Four doughnuts: how what's still open breaks down.
- 2The hours trend, which does not follow the range you picked.
- 3The horizontal bars, ranked largest to smallest.
Four doughnuts break down what's open:
- Open tasks by status — how many are waiting, how many are running;
- Open tasks by priority — how serious what's left is;
- Structures by risk level, including those not evaluated;
- Projects by status.
Three workload charts:
- Hours worked trend, by week. Careful: this one has its own window — the last eight weeks, regardless of the range you picked;
- Open tasks by type — which kind of work dominates, useful for a funding application;
- Hours per member.
Two rankings — the members who created the most tasks, and those who completed the most. The first measures vigilance, the second execution; they're almost never the same people, and that's fine.
Finally, the progress of active projects.
A chart with no data shows "No data available" rather than disappearing: the grid always keeps the same shape.
The trail table
Trail health.
- 1Open tasks, by status.
- 2Structures, by risk level.
This is the most useful widget on the page, and the most ignored.
Each row is a trail; on the left its open tasks split by status, on the right its structures split by risk. The rating symbol recalls the trail's difficulty.
This table answers the question no other screen asks: where is the work concentrated? A trail with seven tasks waiting and two high-risk structures isn't an open trail, whatever its published condition says. It's the right starting point for setting up a project or planning a work day.
A value of zero shows as pale grey rather than a badge: your eye only sees what isn't zero.
What filters the page
Two things, and only two:
The current activity. As everywhere in Sentinel, the dashboard shows one activity at a time. Switching activity recomposes the whole page.
The date range. There is no other filter: no filter by trail, by assignee or by project. For that, go through the Tasks or Structures sections and their filters.
Who has access
The dashboard falls under the Dashboard right in the activity manager, at the read level. Without it the entry doesn't appear in the menu and the app opens elsewhere.
It's a right to grant broadly: a dashboard allows no changes, and a crew that sees its numbers steers better than a crew that merely endures them.
Three pieces of advice
Look at the shape before the number. A number on its own says nothing. "Open tasks: 68" means nothing; "68 and the line has been rising for ten days" means it's time for a work day.
Lengthen the range to judge, shorten it to act. A month shows a trend, seven days show what just happened. They read differently.
Start at the bottom of the page. The indicators say there's a problem; the trail table says where. It's the only one of the two you can act on come Monday.