Dashboards.

Dashboards are saved views composed from cells you've already written. Pin a chart, pin a number, arrange them on a grid, publish when you're ready.

From notebook to dashboard

Every dashboard tile points back at a cell. Re-run the cell, the tile updates. Edit the SQL behind a chart, the chart on the dashboard catches up. No copy-paste, no separate layer of definitions to maintain.

Most teams keep one project-level dashboard.orchid for the headline view and spin up a second one for monthly review or a one-off readout. Both are just files in your project — diff in git, publish on demand.

A 12-column dashboard grid with a KPI strip on top, a line chart, a bar chart, and a table tile./docs-images/dashboards/overview.png
A dashboard is a grid of tiles. Each tile is a cell from somewhere in your project.

What lives where

  • Building a dashboard — pinning cells, the dashboard file, live links to sources.
  • Tile types — Chart, Table, KPI, Markdown.
  • Filters — bind a control to a variable, refresh every tile that uses it.
  • Sharing — publish modes, custom slugs, auto-refresh.

A quick mental model

A dashboard is a YAML file that points to cell ids. Pinning a cell adds a tile entry to the dashboard; the tile fetches the cell's current output when rendered. That's the whole architecture.

orchid_dashboard: '1.0'
metadata:
  title: Monthly revenue review
  created: '2026-05-14T09:00:00Z'
tiles:
  - id: kpi_total
    type: kpi
    source:
      kind: notebook_block
      notebook_id: revenue.orchid
      block_id: total_revenue
    layout: { x: 0, y: 0, w: 3, h: 2 }
  - id: chart_monthly
    type: chart
    source:
      kind: notebook_block
      notebook_id: revenue.orchid
      block_id: chart_by_month
    layout: { x: 3, y: 0, w: 9, h: 5 }
Tip

Right-click a cell in any notebook and pick Pin to dashboard. The first time, Orchid offers to create one for you. After that, pick which dashboard to add to.

Live vs. snapshot

In Orchid, dashboards are always live against the cells in your project. Re-run the cell, the tile reflects it. Published dashboards are static snapshots by default — you can opt in to scheduled refreshes to keep public viewers in sync.

Next: Building a dashboard, or read about tile types, filters, and sharing.