Public View Documents - DashboardFox
One thing that makes DashboardFox different than other business intelligence software is that public view documents are included with every plan, letting you share reports and dashboards without requiring viewers to use your monthly active user limits.
A public view document allows anyone, even anonymous users with no ability to log into DashboardFox, to view specific reports that are public-facing and don't need security.
These reports are created by a user with the composer role (report builder), and can then be viewed or displayed to an unlimited number of guest viewers (or anonymous users) through public view sharing. However, many don't realize how powerful the public view documents are or how to use them to their full potential. We're here to show you six use cases so you can see how these features can help maximize the benefit of DashboardFox for your team.

1. Share Data in an Internal App

Just because it's called public view, doesn't mean you have to open it up outside your company. If you want to embed a commonly-used report into an internal company website, you might be able to reduce the number of monthly active users you need for secure user access. Whether you use Sharepoint, help desk software, or any other application you can embed links or HTML code into, you can use the application's access security and skip using a DashboardFox monthly active user. When employees log in to the website, the guest view report is embedded and ready to use. If the data is secure, be sure you protect the direct URL to the DashboardFox server because that will also display the report, without any login or credentials. You can also do the opposite, you can embed any dashboard or reports within an app with not just security enabled, but with the DashboardFox multi-tenant level security enabled. That would consume one of your monthly active user slots, so for the purpose of this article, let's get back to what you can do with the public view documents 😄.

2. Display on a Large Screen

If you want to showcase specific metrics or data on a large screen in a hallway, conference room, lobby, or operations center, the public view document is perfect for your needs. You can display it and use browser extensions to have the report refresh on the frequency you desire. This allows your BI software to help everyone from a manufacturing floor to an operations team have the most up-to-date information available so they can make better decisions – without a separate login or consuming your user limit.

3. Share the Same Data with Everyone

If everyone needs the same data at the same time (such as end-of-month reports) and security is not a concern, it makes sense to make it available using a public view document. This way you can avoid consuming monthly active user slots when everyone needs to access the same report simultaneously. A public view document gives everyone access to the most updated information with no login or security so they can use the data for whatever they need.

4. Displayed On Your Website

Suppose you want to prove your expertise or successful performance metrics in your industry by showing specific data or KPIs to the public. You can use a public view document to show data or even an interactive dashboard to visitors to your website. Because it's public information, you don't need to secure it behind a login or security protocol. This is probably one of the most common use cases for a public view document. Show your results to visitors online!

5. Quick or Short-Term Use Cases

If you just need to share data quickly and don't want to go through the trouble of setting up a login for someone, a public view document is a great solution. Give them a direct link to the report they need and let them work with it (or export it) as needed. Once they don't need access anymore, remove the document sharing, and use it in another way. The user will no longer have access to the data.

6. Sharing With an External Customer or Partner

We don't recommend using public view documents for sensitive information, but if data leaks aren't a concern a public view document can be a great way to quickly share information with an external partner. You can share a direct link and the customer or stakeholder can see what they need right away. Keep in mind, though, that anyone who gains access to the link will be able to see the data as well. It's best to remove the sharing once the viewer has had a chance to review what they need to see.

What Can Public View Documents NOT Do?

With so much flexibility and use options, you can clearly see that public view documents are a huge benefit. That's why they're included with every DashboardFox plan! However, there are things they can't do. Data security. Most importantly, a public view document does not apply dynamic data security. Of course, you can still build in hardcoded security constraints in the composer when building and saving the report, but once shared via public view, everyone sees the same preset report. Since the user doesn't log in, without the user being identified, there's no way to filter information that they shouldn't see. Schedule Documents for Email Delivery. While anyone can access a report, they can't schedule it to be delivered to their email. A guest viewer is anonymous, so there's no way to know who to send the report to. Save Preferences. If someone views a document with specific filters, it will not be saved the next time the user views the document. Track Who Ran the Document. While the audit log will show that a report was run, it won't show who did it. All views are anonymous.

Use Your Public View Documents with DashboardFox

Now that you realize how powerful these public view documents are, you can see why they're included with every DashboardFox plan. You can manage them as needed to share reports without consuming your monthly active user limit. Ready to get started? Start your 7-day free trial, no credit card required!