Before starting your storyboard, make sure you’ve connected your data sources, so your report is full of meaningful numbers! If you don’t know how to connect your data sources, click here! Are your data sources are connected? Nice! You’re ready to create your first storyboard! Follow these two easy steps and you should have no problem: 1.) Choose Your Type of Storyboard and 2.)Add Your Data Source. There is also a third listing – 3.) Start from Template. This option is suggested for first-time data platform users.

There’s one easy step to creating a storyboard; start from the initial page after login and click the “+” box under your storyboard manager! Here you will be able to choose the type of storyboard you wish to create and the data source you would like to integrate.

1.) Choosing Your Type of Storyboard

As mentioned before, there are different storyboards that you can choose from: Periodic, Rolling, and Comparison. **Note that you also have the choice to create your own custom storyboard as well.

The periodic storyboard follows the standard calendar periods (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually). It also allows you to browse through past periods.	The rolling storyboard is designed to track your performance on an ongoing basis. This dashboard takes the present day as a starting point and displays data over a particular period of time (last 7, 15, and 30 days for example).	The comparison lets you compare different integrations in a specific date range, comparing the current period to the previous period.	The custom storyboard has no date restrictions. This storyboard is very useful for a overview of your dataset.

You can find more information on what the different types of storyboards are here! Once you have chosen your storyboard type, make sure to give a title and fill out the credentials it may entail. Then click “Create the Board.”

2.) Adding Your Integration

You’ve done it! You now have a created storyboard. But wait… it’s just a blank grid. That’s because you need to fill it with your unique content! For this explanation, we will be demonstrating how to add a visual with your own data integration.

Connecting Your Data set and Choosing your Metric

1. To the left is your set of tools to customize your storyboard. Click the second icon ““.
2. Click and drag any visual to the storyboard and line it to the grid as you see fit. You will notice it is blank.
3. To add your data to the visual, simply click on it. A window will appear from the right side containing your integrations. Chose the data set that you wish to use.
   **If you have not yet connected your data source, you can do so as well. For more information, click here!
4. Select the metric you wish to display. This is dependent on which data source you chose.
   **Note that you can add more metrics later on!

Adding a Grouping to Your Visual

Depending on the visual you chose, you may or may not see data presented in your block. If there is no data, it is because you need to also add a grouping! To add a grouping:

1. Make sure your visual is selected. You can confirm this by seeing the window of visual options appear to the right of the screen.
2. Under “Group By,” select “+Add Grouping”
3. Select the dimension you would like to group by. This will be dependent on the type of data set you added.
   **Note that you can add multiple groupings!

You’re done! As a sign of success, you should have a visual that displays the data you’ve customized in it! Now that this visual is connected to your data set, any visual afterward will have the option to connect to this data set as well under “Recently Used Sources.”

3.) Choosing a Storyboard From Template

If you are new to using a data platform such as Optix, then your best option may be to start your storyboard from an existing template from our available template library! From here, connecting your integration(s) is just the same as if you were to start from scratch. To start from template:

1. Start from the Storyboard Manager Page and click Create a Storyboard + > Start from template.
2. From here, a list of supported integrations will be presented to you. Choose your respective integration, and a new window will appear with a grid view of templates that incorporate that integration. Note: remember that templates can still be modified! If a template doesn’t exactly match what you would like, you can change it to your liking – adding / removing visuals, resizing / replacing visuals, etc.
3. Once you choose the template, you are prompted to the intial settings window, where you can choose your datasources, set your date/period range, and name your storyboard. Once these are set, Click Create Storyboard.

That’s it! As a sign of success, you will be brought to a storyboard editor screen with the template you chose. The visuals should be populated with data from your selected Data sources. Remember, your datasource must be connected before hand before creating a storyboard from template. If you don’t know how to connect your data sources, click here!

Already an Optix user? Go back to your Optix account here!