Scheduling and sharing dashboards

Ref: D04 · Track: Admin & Reporting · Time to complete: ~4 min

Why this matters

A great dashboard nobody looks at is useless. Scheduling dashboards to email stakeholders on a cadence — and sharing them properly — is how reports go from "a thing the analyst built" to "the Monday morning artefact the leadership team reads".

Three ways to distribute a dashboard

1. Share access to the dashboard itself

Stakeholders log into Explore and view the live dashboard.

2. Scheduled email delivery

Zendesk emails a PDF/image snapshot of the dashboard on a cadence.

3. Export on demand

Download as PDF, PNG, or CSV.

Pick per audience: internal power-users → live; execs → scheduled email; ad-hoc sharing → export.

Sharing a dashboard (access)

Open the dashboard in Explore: 1. Click Share. 2. Pick users, roles, or groups. 3. Set view vs edit permission. 4. Save.

Shared users see the dashboard in their Explore nav. They see the same data filtered by the dashboard's default filters (unless they apply their own).

Scheduling email delivery

Open the dashboard: 1. Click Schedule delivery. 2. Set cadence: daily, weekly, monthly. 3. Set time (respects timezone). 4. Pick recipients (users or external email addresses — plan-dependent). 5. Choose format: PDF attachment or inline image. 6. Add a short message. 7. Save.

The dashboard is rendered at the scheduled time and emailed. Filters applied to the dashboard at save time are baked in.

Good cadences

Tune to stakeholder rhythm:

• Daily (7am): ops team standup — yesterday's volume, open queue depth.
• Weekly (Monday 8am): management snapshot — last week's volume, CSAT, SLA breaches.
• Monthly (1st of month): exec summary — month-over-month trends, backlog health.
• Quarterly: board-level summary.

Don't over-schedule. An exec who gets a daily dashboard they never read will start filtering your emails.

Making a scheduled dashboard actually useful

A pure table of numbers doesn't land. Apply these:

1. Clear title on the dashboard — "Support weekly, W15".
2. Narrative widgets at the top — a text block saying "This week: volume up 12%, CSAT steady, backlog +8 tickets".
3. Visual summary widgets before detail — scorecards, not just tables.
4. Drill-in link back to the live dashboard for the curious.
5. Consistent layout week-on-week so readers know where to look.

Consider drafting the narrative manually at a cadence if Explore can't generate it dynamically — a 2-minute write-up added to a weekly schedule transforms utility.

Export on demand

For ad-hoc shares:

1. Open the dashboard.
2. Export → PDF / PNG / CSV.
3. Email, Slack, or attach to a meeting.

Exported files are snapshots — static. Re-export when data changes.

Permissions gotchas

• The viewer sees what you see. If you built the dashboard with filters that reveal sensitive tickets, the recipient sees them. Double-check filters before sharing.
• External recipients get no access to Explore. Scheduled emails to external addresses deliver the PDF only — no link to the live dashboard.
• Delete the dashboard, break the schedule. Rename or refactor — the schedule keeps working. Delete — the schedule fails silently. Prefer archive.

Other gotchas

• Timezone alignment. Schedule at the recipient's timezone, not yours. An 8am PT email lands at 3pm in London — too late for a morning review.
• Holidays. Scheduled mails still fire. No built-in holiday pause. Manually disable if needed or filter the recipient list.
• Rendering bugs. Complex dashboards with 30+ widgets sometimes render partially in email. Test by scheduling a one-off to yourself first.
• Size limits. Very large dashboards may exceed email attachment limits. Split or simplify.

A template for a good weekly email dashboard

Top: a narrative panel ("Here's the summary, 2 bullets"). Row 1: three scorecards — volume, CSAT, SLA compliance. Row 2: a trend line — volume last 8 weeks. Row 3: backlog breakdown — oldest tickets by group. Bottom: a link to the live Explore dashboard for drill-in.

Clear at a glance; deep when needed.

Quick check — have you got this?

• Weekly dashboard for execs. Delivery method?
• You share a dashboard with a user, then change a filter. What do they see?
• You want to send the dashboard to an external partner. Options?

Related articles

• D02 — Explore: the Support dashboard
• D03 — Drilling into custom fields in reports
• D05 — Live dashboards for Talk