Custom SmashGL Cards

A Custom SmashGL Card lets you write a SmashGL query directly and display the result as any visualization on your dashboard. Every preset card type in dashboardSMASHBOARD is built on SmashGL — a custom card gives you the same power without the preset defaults.

When to Use a Custom Card

• Metrics not covered by presets — gross profit, specific product categories, cost of goods, or any field Shopify exposes in its analytics API
• Unusual time windows — campaign-specific dates, a fixed launch window, a rolling 45-day period
• Advanced goal configurations — compound goals (revenue AND orders), year-over-year with custom comparison, or goals with custom Alert colors
• Rate metrics — refund rate, conversion rate, or any metric where lower is better or you need percentage display
• Exploration — test a query to see what it returns before committing to a preset card configuration

Adding a Custom Card

1. Open a dashboard and click Add Card.
2. Select Custom SmashGL from the card type list.
3. The Code tab opens with a blank query template.
4. Write your SmashGL query.
5. Click Save to add the card to your dashboard.

You can also switch any existing card to a custom query by opening its editor and switching to the Code tab.

SmashGL Query Structure

A SmashGL query has three concerns: the GOAL (what success looks like), the SOURCE or DATA (where values come from), and the SMASH (how to display it). Clauses can appear in any order.

GOAL    <verb> <metric> [to|by] <value> <time-phrase>
SOURCE  shopify.<table>.<column> [AS <alias>] [, ...]
        [GROUP BY <dimension>]
        [ORDER BY <field> [ASC|DESC]]
        [LIMIT <n>]
SMASH   <viz> [WITH <flag>, <flag>, ...] [TITLED "<title>"]

A Simple Example

This card shows net revenue for the last 30 days with a goal of 10% growth:

GOAL    grow revenue by +10% over last 30 days
SOURCE  shopify.sales.net_sales AS revenue, shopify.sales.orders
SMASH   metric WITH trend, alert TITLED "Revenue (30d)"

Breaking it down:

• GOAL grow revenue by +10% over last 30 days — target is 10% above last period’s net sales, measured over a rolling 30-day window
• SOURCE shopify.sales.net_sales AS revenue, shopify.sales.orders — net_sales is the hero number; orders appears as a secondary stat
• SMASH metric WITH trend, alert TITLED "Revenue (30d)" — display as a Metric card, show the vs-prior pill, pulse the border based on goal status

What You Can Query

SmashGL binds to Shopify data using fully-qualified paths: shopify.<table>.<column>.

shopify.sales — sales data:

shopify.sessions — session data:

Derived — AOV:

When shopify.sales.net_sales and shopify.sales.orders are both present in a SOURCE, AOV is automatically computed as net_sales / orders. Reference it as aov in GOAL:

SOURCE shopify.sales.net_sales AS aov, shopify.sales.orders
GOAL   grow aov by +3% this month

Common Custom Query Patterns

Gross profit this month:

GOAL    hit gp >= $20,000 this month
SOURCE  shopify.sales.gross_profit AS gp
SMASH   metric WITH alert TITLED "Gross Profit"

Campaign revenue — fixed date range:

GOAL    hit revenue >= $25,000 from 2026-11-27 to 2026-11-30
SOURCE  shopify.sales.net_sales AS revenue, shopify.sales.orders
SMASH   metric WITH alert, forecast, gap TITLED "BFCM Revenue"

Top products this quarter:

WINDOW  this quarter
SOURCE  shopify.sales.gross_sales AS products
        GROUP BY product_title
        ORDER BY gross_sales DESC
        LIMIT 10
SMASH   table TITLED "Top Products (Q)"

Year-over-year revenue:

GOAL    grow revenue by +20% over last 30 days
COMPARE previousYear
SOURCE  shopify.sales.net_sales AS revenue
SMASH   metric WITH trend, alert, forecast TITLED "Revenue YoY"

Refund rate — lower is better, displayed as percentage:

GOAL      reduce refund_rate to <= 2% this month
TYPE      ratio
FORMAT    percent
DIRECTION lower
SOURCE    shopify.sales.refund_rate AS refund_rate
SMASH     metric WITH trend, alert TITLED "Refund Rate"

Compound goal — revenue AND orders:

GOAL    hit revenue >= $15,000 AND hit orders >= 300 this month
SOURCE  shopify.sales.net_sales AS revenue,
        shopify.sales.orders AS orders
SMASH   metric WITH alert, forecast TITLED "Monthly OKR"

Hold an SLA — pass/fail threshold:

GOAL    hold uptime >= 99.98% this month
TYPE    ratio
SOURCE  shopify.sessions.uptime_pct AS uptime
SMASH   metric WITH alert TITLED "Uptime SLA"

Soft / aspirational goal:

GOAL    grow sessions to >= 50000 this month SOFT
SOURCE  shopify.sessions.online_store_visitors AS sessions
SMASH   metric WITH alert TITLED "Sessions (Stretch)"

Sparkline with 7-day smoothing:

WINDOW  over last 30 days
SMOOTH  rolling7
SOURCE  shopify.sales.net_sales AS revenue
        GROUP BY day
        ORDER BY day ASC
SMASH   sparkline WITH trend TITLED "Revenue Trend"

Static demo card (no API call):

GOAL      hit revenue >= $15,000 this month
DATA      revenue = {"net_sales": 47300, "gross_sales": 50600, "orders": 847}
PREVIOUS           {"net_sales": 41800, "gross_sales": 44200, "orders": 723}
SMASH     metric WITH alert TITLED "Revenue (Demo)"

Full Language Reference

See the SmashGL reference for the complete list of clauses, flags, time window options, goal types, smoothing algorithms, and validation rules.

Next Steps

• SmashGL reference
• Card types
• Visualization types

Still need help? Open a support case