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Show a KPI: one number with a comparison and a sparkline

Show one number, such as “This month’s revenue”, compare it with the previous period or with last year, and add a small trend line.

5 min
Open in Corteksa
Before you start · for owners and managers
Edit access to the dashboard
  • You need: Edit access to the dashboard

Steps

1
In Edit layout, press Add widget, choose KPI and press Continue.
2
Choose the unit, the Measure, the field and the Date field (Widget basics: unit, measure, date and filters).
3
In Compare to, choose Nothing, Previous period or Same period last year.
4
Under Display options, turn on what you want. Press Continue, then Add widget.

How it works

Option
Values
What it does
Compare to
Nothing · Previous period · Same period last year
Shows the previous number, the difference and the percentage
Show icon
On by default
Looks only
Show sparkline
Off by default
A trend line of the same value across the period
Use compact number format
Off by default
1.2K instead of 1,200
Color thresholds
Warning at · Danger at · Direction (High is bad or Low is bad)
Two number values that color the card
Widget filters
Up to 200 conditions
Narrow down the records counted

The comparison

Previous period: a period of the same length, right before the current one. Same period last year: the same dates a year earlier (February 29 maps to February 28). The “All time” range has no comparison.

If the previous value is zero, a “New” mark shows instead of a percentage. The difference and percentage are calculated from the exact values before rounding, so the difference shown may be 0.01 away from subtracting the two numbers shown.

The sparkline

It splits the date range: daily up to 31 days, weekly up to 180 days, and monthly beyond that. “All time” shows the last 12 months. It shows up to 60 points (the most recent). With Count and Sum, its points add up to the number. You can click a point to see its records (Click any number to see the records behind it).

If something goes wrong

What you see
Why
What to do
The difference doesn’t show
The comparison is “Nothing”, or the range is “All time”.
Choose a comparison and a specific range.
“—“ instead of a number
Average, minimum or maximum, with no records in the range.
Widen the range; “—“ doesn’t mean zero.
The number is lower than what a teammate sees
Your permissions on the unit are lower.

A real example

Shield Security Co.
The situation

The manager wants to know if contract revenue is better than last year.

What they did
  1. KPI: the contracts unit, Sum of “Contract value”, base date “Signing date”.
  2. Comparison: last year, with a sparkline and compact numbers.
The result

He sees “+18%” versus last year, and the shape of the month, in one card.

A made-up company, to show the idea. The numbers are rounded.

Good to know

The sparkline has up to 60 points.
Currencies other than the field’s default currency show on separate lines and aren’t converted (Dashboard numbers: currencies, rounding and empty values).
The sparkline isn’t printed in the PDF, or included in the CSV.
Did this guide solve it?
If not, we’ll ask what was missing.
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