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OutputDashboardCadenceAlways currentForCOOs and VPs of Operations, merchandising and supply-chain leaders, general managers, ops analysts

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When to use it

Most dashboards answer a question nobody asked. Forty tiles, no order, every number the same shade of neutral, and a leader who still opens the spreadsheet because they don’t trust the thing on the wall. A dashboard should show a small number of metrics you can act on this week, each with a window you can see and a comparison you can trust. Nobody regenerates it between readings, so every judgement on it has to come from the cards themselves, not from a caption written months ago. That’s the spec. Summation builds it that way, and it screens out the metrics that can’t meet it.

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Understanding the demo

When you delegate your KPI dashboard to Summation, you get a small set of tiles in a deliberate order, the trend behind each tile, a bridge that assigns the gap to plan, and a breakdown by segment. Every tile names its window in its title. Colour means one thing per card, and it appears only where your threshold was set on the same window the tile shows. Most thresholds are set on a full year, so most tiles show the value and its variance to a named target instead.
A dashboard with an 'Add Filter' control above two rows of three tiles: net merchandise sales year to date of $43.99M, down 5.9% against plan to date of $46.76M; merchandise gross margin year to date of 52.57%, down 0.2% against plan to date of 52.68%; markdown percent of ticket year to date of 11.38%, up 9.8% against plan to date of 10.36%; weeks of supply averaging 8.75 weeks over the last 52 weeks, up 9.4% against a target cover of 8.00 weeks; broken-set share for the latest week of 10.73%, down 10.5% against a target of 12.00%; and receipt attainment year to date of 102.33%, up 2.3% against a receipt plan of 100.00%. Below them, a 'Net Sales by Week' line chart covering the last 26 weeks plots Actual against Plan by week ending, and a 'Net Sales Bridge by Line' year-to-date waterfall steps down from a plan of $46.76M through Bottoms, Tops & Outerwear and Accessories to an actual of $43.99M.

The full dashboard: tiles and charts

  1. Headline tiles: Two rows of three. The top row is demand and margin; the bottom row is inventory health. Each tile carries its window in its title
  2. Trends: The last 26 weeks of net sales and markdown rate, so a tile that’s off shows when it went off
  3. Bridge: Net sales by line from plan to actual. This is the chart that turns “we’re behind” into “this line is behind.”
  4. Rate by segment: Gross margin rate by line, so a healthy company rate can’t hide an unhealthy line
  5. Filters: Business unit, channel and period, applied across every card
Every card names the view or query behind it in its config pane, and Summation validates every card, the layout, and the filters before the dashboard is shown.

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How it works

Addison takes you through a guided setup:
  1. Data: Summation screens every candidate metric on whether it is final for the period, independently defined, and measured on the window a tile would show
  2. Metrics: Summation suggests the metrics that passed, each with its window, threshold, and direction
  3. Layout: Summation suggests the right layout to get actionable insights for your business
  4. Build and check: Summation builds the dashboard and validates it before you see it: every card resolves to a real table or query, the tiles fit the grid, and each tab filter is confirmed to reach the cards it should. Dashboards do not carry a verification badge, since verification covers reports, decks, Excel workbooks, and HTML pages. When you need a verified read on these same metrics to send to someone, ask Addison for a report built from them

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What you need

Connect your warehouse so the dashboard stays current. A file upload will build it, but the cards won’t refresh until the data does.

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Make it yours

Drag, resize and reconfigure cards in Edit mode, or describe the change to Addison. Use the filters to narrow the dashboard to your business unit. To ask about any card or change it, use Ask or Edit with AI on the card. Keep your metric definitions in Knowledge so the dashboard, the weekly review and the deck all agree.

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Try it

In Summation:
  • Use the setup skill: /operational-dashboard
  • Or follow the guided setup: Get started → Choose a ready-made job → Monitor operational performance → Explore demo → Create with my data
From another agent: Open summation.com/agents.md and ask for an operational KPI dashboard.

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Next

Dashboards

Cards that refresh as your data changes.

Verification

What verification checks, and which artifacts get it.

Knowledge

Keep your metric definitions in one place.

Addison

The analyst that builds and edits your work.