Creating Smashes
~5 min readA smash is a single goal widget on your dashboard. It points at a metric, declares a target, and shows you at a glance whether you're winning or not. The name comes from the mission: smash those goals.
What Makes a Smash
Every smash has three parts:
- A query — a SmashQL statement that defines what to measure and what success looks like
- A visualization — how to display that progress (arc, bar, gauge, scorecard, trend line)
- A label — a human-readable name that shows up on your dashboard
Creating a Smash
- Open a dashboard and click Add Smash.
- Give your smash a label (e.g. "Monthly Revenue").
- Write a SmashQL query in the editor. Not sure where to start? See SmashQL reference or use one of the built-in templates.
- Choose a visualization type from the dropdown.
- Click Preview to see how it looks with live data.
- Click Save to add it to your dashboard.
A Simple Example
This SmashQL query creates a smash that tracks monthly revenue against a $50,000 goal, displayed as a circular progress arc:
sum(total_price) AS total_revenue
FROM shopify.orders
WHERE financial_status = 'paid'
GROUP BY month
GOAL total_revenue >= 50000
VISUALIZE progress_arc
The GOAL clause declares your target. The VISUALIZE clause tells dashboardSMASHBOARD how to render it. Everything else is standard SQL.
Choosing a Visualization
Pick the visualization that makes the status of your goal immediately obvious at a glance:
- progress_arc — circular arc, great for single percentage-based goals
- progress_bar — horizontal bar, good for side-by-side comparisons
- scorecard — big number with delta, best for absolute values that need to pop
- gauge — speedometer dial, ideal for rate or threshold metrics
- trend_line — line chart with goal threshold overlay, best for time-series goals
See Visualization types for screenshots and when to use each.
Editing a Smash
Click any smash on your dashboard to open the editor. Change the query, visualization, or label and click Save. Changes take effect immediately.
Deleting a Smash
Open the smash editor and click Delete smash at the bottom. Smash deletion is permanent — the smash is removed from the dashboard and the SmashQL query is discarded.
Next Steps
Still need help?