Dashboard and location readiness
The first screen an owner lands on after signing up and finishing the setup wizard is the Dashboard. At the top it answers "what should I do next to start working", and below it shows the numbers the way your venue wants to see them: the set of charts is yours to assemble.
Open: Admin panel → Dashboard (admin.cenaly.com/dashboard). This is not a "calls dashboard" or an "orders dashboard": every line of a chart names its own data source, and one chart can compare different sections.
What this help section covers#
The Dashboard opens the Communications, AI & Records section. Next to it are the articles about messaging, incoming requests, AI tools and asset records:
| Article | What it is about |
|---|---|
| 💬 Team chat and guests | staff messaging, the "Needs a decision" queue and the whole guest chat in one window |
| 📥 Requests: a single inbox | every incoming request of the location in one stream: forms, callback, widgets |
| 📧 Mail and the AI auto-responder | your own mailboxes, a mail client in the panel, an AI agent that runs the mailbox |
| 🎧 Calls: recordings and speech analytics | call recordings, transcription, tags and AI analysis metrics |
| 🤖 AI receptionist | a robot on incoming calls: persona, questionnaires, routing |
| 💡 Agent assist | hints for the employee during a call over the live transcript |
| 🎓 Staff training | courses and tasks built from the knowledge base, repetition, exam clearance |
| 🤖 Digital worker | a browser AI performer for routine in third-party systems without an API |
| 🧠 AI models and your own key | which provider and model power the AI features |
| 🗣️ AI translator for the guest | a face-to-face conversation with a foreign guest on two phones |
| 🧰 Assets and equipment | a register of fixed assets, depreciation, statements, QR labels |
| 🖼️ Gallery: the account media library | images are uploaded once and picked in any editor |
| 🧩 Custom editors | your own mini-editors inside the panel in a sandbox |
What you need to start#
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| The account owner role | the section is built for the owner: they see data across all locations |
| The "Dashboard" card switched on | the section is hidden by default — enable it in the app store. The setup wizard and the copilot switch it on themselves when you finish onboarding |
| At least one location | readiness is computed from the account profile and the location profile |
| The sections the numbers come from | a chart is drawn over the data of Orders, Appointments, Calls, stock and site widgets. A section that is off produces no data |
No extra settings, devices or subscriptions are required: the section reads what you already have.
If you signed up long ago and there is no "Dashboard" in the sidebar, nothing is broken. It is one of the opt-in sections: the "Dashboard" card in the app store is free, and it is removed the same way as any other.
Getting your venue ready: five steps#
The first block of the page, above the charts, is the "Getting your venue ready" checklist with a "{done} of 5 done" counter. The five steps are the minimum after which the venue can actually serve a guest:
| Step | What to do | How it closes |
|---|---|---|
| Name your venue | type the name right in the panel | an input inside the checklist: an auto-created location is called "My Restaurant", and guests see that name on the storefront and on the receipt |
| Fill in the catalogue | import, a demo menu or your own items | the "Open catalogue" button; see catalogue import |
| Set up payments | an online payment provider — or the "We only take cash" button | see payments |
| Place a test order | the "Test order" button opens your storefront in a new tab | order as a guest: the order lands in "Orders" and closes the step |
| Print the QR code (and open a shift) | the "QR codes" and "Open a shift" buttons | a shift is what lets the register take money |
Three large buttons sit under the list: "QR codes for tables", "Open a shift" and "Test order". "Open a shift" appears only for formats with a register, and the "QR for tables" wording only where tables exist: in a shop or a salon the checklist talks about products, services and a link, not about dishes and tables.
The panel shows itself while the location is not ready. Once everything is done — or if you collapsed it yourself — only a green "5 of 5 done" line remains: the block does not disappear, so you can always come back to it. To expand it on purpose (and to send a colleague a link), use admin.cenaly.com/dashboard?panel=readiness.
Readiness is computed locally, from your own profile, not by asking the server; the expensive checks (payments, orders, shift) are made once and remembered in the browser — opening the page does not re-query them.
Dashboards and tiles#
A dashboard is a named set of charts. You can have several — "Morning", "Delivery", "Phone" — and switch between them in the section header.
- "New dashboard" creates one, "Rename" changes the name, "Delete" removes it together with all its charts (it asks for confirmation).
- Tiles live in a 12-column grid, each in one of four sizes: Small, Medium, Large, Full width.
- A chart has "Duplicate" (handy when you need the same chart with a different filter) and "Delete".
- Data is computed when the page opens and on the "Refresh" button. There is deliberately no background polling: a dozen cards hammering the server on a timer buys nothing but load.
- The open dashboard lives in the address (
?tab=<id>): F5, "back" and a link to a colleague all return to the same set.
The card states its condition honestly: "The source returned only part of the rows — the numbers are understated", "No data yet" (not an error — there were no records), "The service is being deployed". An error in one series dims that line, not the whole chart.
Building a chart#
The "Add chart" button opens the editor. It is built around one idea: a series is a source plus a filter plus an aggregation.
Chart appearance:
| Field | Options |
|---|---|
| Type | Line · Area · Bars · Stacked bars · Horizontal bars · Pie · Doughnut |
| Size | Small · Medium · Large · Full width |
| Name | your own; without it the tile is labelled "Untitled chart" |
| Show legend | a checkbox |
Time window:
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Window | "Relative" (last N days / weeks / months) or "Fixed dates" (from… to…) |
| Step | Hour · Day · Week · Month |
| Time by | the moment the record was created or the moment of the event itself — it decides which bucket the row lands in |
| Draw zeros in empty buckets | a checkbox; averages are never zero-filled — there a gap stays a gap |
| Compare with previous period | a dashed line in the same colour |
Series. The "Add series" button, up to 8 series per chart (the ninth colour is already indistinguishable, colour blindness included). Each series has a label, a source, a colour, an aggregation and a filter.
- Aggregation: Count of records · Sum · Average · Median · Minimum · Maximum. The last five require a metric — the editor will say so.
- Filter: statuses, tags (all of them), "Title contains", metric conditions (equals, greater than, contains, has a value, is empty…).
Data sources#
The list of sources comes from the server rather than being hard-wired into the panel — so a new source shows up on its own, without updating the app. There are seven today:
| Source | What it counts |
|---|---|
| Orders | orders of the location: total, item count, fulfilment type, sales channel |
| Bookings and appointments | tables and online booking: party size, duration, deposit, master/resource, service |
| Menu views | storefront traffic: sessions, visitors, page views |
| Stock costs | stock documents: amount, cost, quantity, lines per document |
| Calls | recordings, their duration and your own AI analysis metrics |
| Site widgets | the widget funnel: widget shown → opened → submitted; surface, device, referral class |
| Website campaigns | proactive messages: impressions, clicks, dismissals, conversions by campaign and A/B variant |
Two subtleties, without which the numbers read wrong:
- Call metrics are yours. Which metrics the AI extracts from a conversation is up to you — configured in Calls → settings → AI. The gear icon in the dashboard header leads exactly there: those definitions have no other author in the panel.
- For "Site widgets" a row is a daily group, not a single event. That is why the default aggregation is not "Count of records" but "Sum" over the "Events" metric — and the field label says so in words.
A source can be unavailable, and that is normal. Such an item is inactive and carries the reason: "Orders" needs the catalogue and orders index, and "Menu views" does not work on cenaly.ru (there is no Google Analytics sync in the Russian contour at all). If the service lacked permission for a source's data, you will see it as a caption on the chart tile itself: the source list does not check permissions, otherwise every opening of the section would cost a trial read per source.
"Describe the chart in words"#
Above the dashboard (and inside the editor) there is a single field — "Describe the chart in words":
- in the dashboard header a phrase builds a new chart and opens it in the editor right away — the assistant will not save anything silently;
- in the editor the same phrase edits the open chart: "make it bars", "add a second series for delivery".
Input is typed or dictated (the "Dictate" button; the browser does the recognition, no audio is sent anywhere, and the button only appears where the browser supports it).
The answer is shown in full, including warnings about what the assistant dropped from your phrase: "Unknown metric replaced with a record count", "Unknown status in the filter discarded", "Only the first 8 series were kept". A silently swallowed invention of the model is a chart that counts the wrong thing.
Section tiles#
Besides your own charts, two ready-made tiles live on the dashboard:
- "Phone" — telephony money and calls. It appears only when the Calls section is on: an owner without telephony does not need someone else's feature on their main screen.
- "Documents" — the three numbers worth opening the section for: expiring, overdue, awaiting acknowledgement. Each number is a link with its own filter into Documents, not a generic entrance. The tile does not disappear when everything is fine (a vanishing tile in a fixed grid reads as a breakage), but on a brand without that section it is not shown at all.
Limitations#
- The section is opt-in. It is off by default; "older" accounts will not see the readiness panel until "Dashboard" is switched on in the app store.
- There is no drag and drop. The order of dashboards and tiles is set at creation time — you cannot rearrange them with the mouse yet.
- There is no background refresh. Numbers update when the page opens and on "Refresh"; there are no automatic retries after an error either.
- Up to 8 series per chart — not a matter of taste but the limit of distinguishable colours.
- On
cenaly.ruthe "Menu views" source is unavailable (no Google Analytics sync in the Russian contour). The other six sources are computed in both clouds. - The "Orders" source requires the catalogue and orders index: without it the item is inactive and explains why.
- The AI assistant is optional. If your contour has no connected model, the "Describe the chart in words" field simply is not there — the section works without it.
- Dictation is browser-side. In a browser without speech recognition there is no "Dictate" button.
- This is a builder, not accounting. Ready-made hard-wired reports live in Statistics and Finance; the dashboard does not replace them and does not produce tax forms.
Troubleshooting#
| Symptom | Check |
|---|---|
| No "Dashboard" in the sidebar | whether the "Dashboard" card is on in the app store; the section is hidden by default |
| The readiness checklist is not visible | it is collapsed into a "5 of 5 done" line, or you collapsed it — open ?panel=readiness |
| The "test order" step does not close | the order must contain items: an opened and abandoned storefront is not an order |
| A source is greyed out | the caption next to it names the reason: no orders index, no analytics sync on cenaly.ru |
| The tile says "No data yet" | that is not an error: there were no records in the chosen period. Widen the window or check that the source section is on |
| "The service is being deployed" | the dashboards backend is not up in this contour yet; try later — the panel itself does not retry |
| Numbers are lower than in the section | the card carries a warning that the source returned only part of the rows — wait for a full read and press "Refresh" |
| Call metrics are missing from the list | they are yours to define: set up AI analysis in Calls first (the gear in the dashboard header leads there) |
A symptom-by-symptom walkthrough lives in troubleshooting; if nothing helped, write to us — see how to get help.
FAQ#
How is the Dashboard different from Statistics?#
In Statistics the reports are hard-wired: you pick a period and look at what we computed. In the Dashboard you assemble the chart yourself — source, filter, aggregation — and collect into one set what you look at every morning.
Can I compare two locations on one chart?#
Yes: the sources have a "Location" dimension, and a chart holds up to eight series. Make two series of the same source with different filters and they will sit side by side.
Who else sees my dashboards?#
The section is built for the account owner: the chart sets are theirs. Staff work in their own sections, not here.
Does the data refresh by itself?#
No. Numbers are computed when you open the page and on "Refresh". That is deliberate: a chart is not a kitchen display, and polling a dozen cards in the background gives nothing but load.
The assistant built the wrong chart — did it break anything?#
No. The assistant never saves silently: it opens the assembled chart in the editor, and you either fix it or close it. Everything it dropped from your phrase is listed as warnings above the result.
The readiness panel is in the way — can I remove it for good?#
You can collapse it with "Collapse": a single line remains. Removing it entirely is deliberately impossible: while the location is not ready this is the shortest path to the first order, and a finished panel takes no space anyway.
Related articles#
- App store — where the Dashboard itself and the source sections are switched on
- Statistics and Finance — ready-made reports if you do not need a builder
- Calls — the source of your custom chart metrics
- My site: widgets — the "Site widgets" and "Website campaigns" sources
- Needs attention — the things waiting for a decision right now
- First day: where to start — launch checklists by business type
- Orders, Appointments, Documents — the sections the dashboard reads