The questions prospective customers actually ask — answered without the marketing fluff. If you don’t find what you need here, email us at support@dashboardSMASHBOARD.com.
The primary revenue metric in dashboardSMASHBOARD is net_sales — gross sales minus discounts and returns. You can also query gross_sales separately to see revenue before any deductions. When you see a "Revenue" card on a dashboard, it shows net_sales by default.
Refunds and returns are excluded from net_sales. The figure you see reflects what your store actually collected, not what was originally charged.
dashboardSMASHBOARD uses Shopify’s reported figures directly — no additional adjustments are applied on top. In Shopify’s data model, returns are recorded as negative transactions that reduce net_sales.
Partial refunds reduce the net figure proportionally. Timing matters: if a return is processed days after the original order, it affects the period in which Shopify records the refund — not the original order date. This is consistent with how Shopify itself reports the data.
dashboardSMASHBOARD connects to Shopify via read-only API access. Available metrics include:
sales source: net_sales, gross_sales, orders, net_items_soldsessions source: online_store_visitorsnet_sales and orders appear in the same queryThese are the metrics Shopify exposes through its reporting API. dashboardSMASHBOARD surfaces all of them and adds goal-tracking on top.
Data syncs automatically every 15 minutes. When we say “real-time,” we mean your dashboards reflect what’s happening in your store right now — not that data streams live to the millisecond. A sale that just went through will appear on your dashboard within approximately 15 minutes.
On first install, up to 12 months of historical data is pulled in so your dashboards have immediate context — no waiting for data to accumulate.
All date windows — Today, This Week, This Month, This Quarter, This Year — are calculated using your Shopify store’s timezone setting. If your store is set to EST, "This Month" starts at midnight EST on the 1st.
You can override the timezone per dashboard in your dashboard settings, which is useful if you operate stores across multiple regions or if your team is based in a different timezone than your store.
Not currently. There is no change history for who modified a card definition, goal target, or dashboard layout. If your team makes changes, those changes take effect immediately. There is no rollback or log of prior configurations.
If this is a hard requirement for your team, it’s worth weighing before you buy.
SmashGL is a goal-first query language built on top of Shopify’s data. You declare what success looks like (GOAL), bind to your Shopify data (SOURCE), and choose how to display it (SMASH) — all in one compact query.
For example:
GOAL grow revenue by +5% over last 30 days
SOURCE shopify.sales.net_sales AS revenue, shopify.sales.orders
SMASH metric WITH trend, alert TITLED "Grow Revenue 5% This Month"
If you’re comfortable with SQL or ShopifyQL, SmashGL should feel natural within a day. If you’re not technical at all, the preset cards cover the most common metrics without writing a single query — SmashGL is there when you want to go further. SmashGL is patent pending.
Seven visualization types are available:
For each card you can set: a name, a goal (percentage-based or absolute), a time window (rolling days, named calendar periods, or fixed date ranges), and a comparison period (previous period, previous year, or same day last week). Goal status drives card color automatically via Red/Amber/Green status.
Yes — this is one of dashboardSMASHBOARD’s most powerful features. Every card is backed by a SmashGL query, which gives you complete flexibility to pull any data Shopify exposes: revenue, orders, AOV, sessions, inventory, gross profit, items sold, and more.
Beyond displaying data, you can attach a goal to any card. Set a fixed target, track growth by percentage, or define a threshold (e.g. “keep refund rate below 3%”). The card then shows live progress toward that goal — complete with a progress bar, gap to go, forecast, and probability of hitting the target by end of period.
For example, you could build a card that:
The Code tab on any card opens the SmashGL editor — write or edit the query directly, preview results, and iterate. The Simple tab handles the most common configurations without writing any code. SmashGL is patent pending.
Your price is automatically matched to your Shopify account plan when you subscribe — you never have to pick a tier. The pricing tiers are:
Every tier includes everything: unlimited dashboards, unlimited goals, all visualization types, full SmashQL query language, Query Lab, all Shopify metrics, four pre-built starter dashboards, all future updates, and email support. No seat limits, no query limits, no data caps. A license covers one Shopify store.
If you upgrade or downgrade your Shopify plan, dashboardSMASHBOARD detects the change and sends you an email. You’ll see an in-app prompt to update your subscription to the new price. Your access continues uninterrupted until you choose to update — nothing is cancelled automatically.
Yes. Every plan includes a 14-day free trial with full access to every feature. Billing begins only after the 14 days end if you choose to continue. Cancel before then by uninstalling from your Shopify admin and no charge applies.
Billing is handled entirely through Shopify’s billing system. You won’t enter any payment details directly into dashboardSMASHBOARD — the charge is authorized through your Shopify account and appears on your regular Shopify invoice. This also means your subscription is tied to your Shopify store; if you uninstall the app, your subscription is cancelled automatically.
Install directly from the Shopify App Store and authorize via your Shopify account — no separate account creation required. Once installed, dashboardSMASHBOARD automatically pulls up to 12 months of historical data and creates four starter dashboards (Daily Pulse, Growth Tracker, Operations Health, and Year-Over-Year).
Most merchants are looking at live goal-tracking data within a few minutes of installing. There is no lengthy configuration wizard.
No. The preset cards and starter dashboards cover the most common metrics out-of-the-box — revenue, orders, AOV, sessions, inventory health — without writing a single query. If you can use a spreadsheet, you can use dashboardSMASHBOARD.
SmashGL unlocks more advanced customization and is available when you want it. It’s optional, not a prerequisite.
dashboardSMASHBOARD works with any active Shopify store on any Shopify plan.
To install and access the app, you need a Shopify staff account with the “Manage and install apps and channels” permission enabled in your Shopify admin.
Currency and locale handling follows whatever Shopify reports. Revenue figures are displayed in the currency Shopify provides for your store. If you run a multi-currency store, the values in dashboardSMASHBOARD reflect Shopify’s reported figures, which typically use your store’s primary presentment currency. No additional currency conversion is applied.
Access is controlled entirely through Shopify’s staff permission system. Any team member with “Manage and install apps and channels” access in your Shopify admin can access dashboardSMASHBOARD. There is no separate SSO, no granular role system within the app itself, and no per-user permissions — access is all-or-nothing at the Shopify staff level.
If your Shopify admin controls who can manage apps, that’s your access control layer for dashboardSMASHBOARD.
Yes, in two ways:
Internal access via Shopify staff permissions: Any Shopify staff member with “Manage and install apps and channels” access can view and edit all dashboards. Dashboards are a shared workspace — there are no per-user dashboard permissions or viewer-only roles within the app.
Public shareable links: Any dashboard can be shared with people outside your Shopify team — investors, agency partners, contractors, or leadership — using a read-only public link. Recipients can view live dashboard data in a browser without a Shopify login. Links can be set to never expire or to auto-revoke after 7, 30, or 90 days. You can revoke a link at any time from the Share modal.
You can also deliver the link directly from inside the app: select saved notification channels (Email, Slack, or Teams) or type one-off email addresses and click Send now — recipients receive a branded message with a button linking to the live read-only dashboard.
Yes. The Notifications system (bell icon in the dashboard header) lets you set up rules that send alerts to Email, Slack, or Teams when a card’s status changes. You can trigger on specific band transitions — goal reached, at risk, missed, or any status change — or set up a scheduled digest that delivers a summary of your dashboard on a recurring timetable (daily, weekly, or monthly).
To use notifications:
Channels are account-wide and reusable across any dashboard. Rules are scoped per dashboard. Notification messages include the metric value, status band, vs-prior change, and a link to the read-only live dashboard — no Shopify login required for recipients.
Yes. Click the Download icon (↓) in the dashboard header to export all card data as local files. Choose CSV or Excel (XLSX) — each card exports as a separate file named after the card title.
What you get per card:
The export uses data already loaded in the dashboard. If a card’s data is stale, click Refresh before exporting. Cards showing an error are silently skipped — the rest export normally.
Each Shopify store requires its own dashboardSMASHBOARD license. Dashboards and data are scoped per store and are not shared between stores.
Cross-store consolidated reporting depends on what ShopifyQL itself supports. If ShopifyQL provides multi-store query capabilities, dashboardSMASHBOARD can leverage them — but today, each store is managed and viewed independently.
Four dashboards are created automatically on install:
All four are fully customizable — add, remove, or reconfigure cards at any time.
Yes. Alerts work at two levels:
Visual alerts (on-dashboard): Any card with a goal shows a Red/Amber/Green pulsing border keyed to your goal status. Enable this by adding the ALERT flag to a card’s SmashGL query, or toggling Alert in the Simple tab. The status bands are:
Notifications (Email, Slack, Teams): The Notifications system lets you push alerts off-dashboard to your team. Set up a rule to fire when a card enters a specific status band — goal reached, at risk, or missed — and deliver it to any combination of saved email addresses, Slack channels, or Microsoft Teams channels. A cooldown setting prevents repeat alerts within a configurable window (hourly, daily, weekly, etc.).
You can also set up scheduled digests that deliver a summary of a card or your entire dashboard on a recurring timetable — daily, weekly, or monthly — regardless of goal status. Useful for Monday morning revenue summaries or end-of-month OKR reports sent directly to a Slack channel or inbox.
To configure notifications, click the bell icon ( 🔔 ) in the dashboard header. Set up channels first (email addresses or webhook URLs), then create rules that reference those channels.
Scheduled reports: Yes. Use the Notifications system to set up scheduled digests — daily, weekly, or monthly — delivered to Email, Slack, or Teams. Each message includes the metric value, status, vs-prior change, and a link to the live read-only dashboard. Configure these from the bell icon in any dashboard header.
Data export: Yes. Click the Download icon (↓) in the dashboard header to export all cards as CSV or Excel files — one file per card, named after the card title. See “Can I export dashboard data” in the Team & Access section above for full details on what each card type exports.
Card data is exportable to CSV or Excel using the Download icon in the dashboard header. Dashboard configurations (the card definitions, goals, and layout) are not currently exportable as a portable file.
Dashboards can also be printed to PDF directly from your browser if you need a visual snapshot to archive or share.
There is no dedicated mobile app. dashboardSMASHBOARD runs as an embedded Shopify app in your browser and is designed to work on mobile. The experience is optimized for desktop — complex multi-card dashboards and the Query Lab are best used on a larger screen.
No — not now, not ever. dashboardSMASHBOARD requests only read permissions from Shopify:
No write scopes are requested. Shopify enforces this at the API level — any write request from the app is rejected outright by Shopify’s infrastructure, regardless of what the app code does. The app cannot create, edit, delete, or modify orders, products, customers, prices, inventory, or any other store data.
dashboardSMASHBOARD never asks for or stores your Shopify password. All authentication flows through Shopify’s own OAuth 2.0 system — the same mechanism used by every major Shopify app.
When you install, Shopify issues an access token scoped to the specific read permissions the app requested. That token is encrypted before it is stored. Access to dashboardSMASHBOARD is controlled entirely by Shopify’s staff permission system — only Shopify staff accounts with “Manage and install apps and channels” access can use it. You can revoke access instantly by uninstalling the app from your Shopify admin, which immediately invalidates the token.
The app is hosted on Render.com infrastructure in the United States with managed PostgreSQL, automated backups, and TLS-terminated HTTPS on every connection.
What we store:
What we do not store:
Data is fetched from Shopify’s API at query time; only the aggregate result is cached. We never mirror a copy of your order history or customer database.
In transit: All connections between your browser, our servers, and Shopify’s API use TLS 1.2 or higher. HTTPS is enforced everywhere — there is no unencrypted path.
At rest: The database runs on Render’s managed PostgreSQL service with encryption at rest enabled. Shopify access tokens are additionally encrypted within the database before storage.
Session security: Authentication cookies are configured as HttpOnly (not accessible to JavaScript), Secure (HTTPS only), and SameSite=Lax (CSRF protection). Sessions expire after 8 hours of inactivity.
Every code change runs through a multi-layer automated security pipeline before deployment:
npm audit checks every third-party package against the public CVE database. High-severity findings block deployment.This is not aspirational — these checks are part of CI and block merges that fail them.
Every webhook sent by Shopify to dashboardSMASHBOARD is HMAC-SHA256 verified against the app’s Shopify API secret before any payload is processed. Webhooks with an invalid or missing signature are rejected immediately and logged.
This ensures no third party can inject fake events (fake orders, fake uninstalls, fake billing updates) into the system.
Public share links use a unique opaque token embedded in the URL. The token is a randomly generated string — it contains no store name, email address, or other identifying information. Only someone with the exact URL can view the shared dashboard.
Shared dashboards are strictly read-only — recipients cannot edit cards, goals, or settings. No Shopify login is required to view them.
You have full control over link lifetime:
Treat a share link like a password: share it only with people you trust, and revoke it when it’s no longer needed.
No. We do not sell, rent, or trade your data. Ever.
Your store data is used only to operate the service — to render your dashboards and execute your SmashGL queries. We use aggregate, anonymized usage patterns internally to improve the product. No raw store data, metric values, or account information is shared with or sold to any third party.
Deletion begins within 30 days of uninstalling. The Shopify shop/redact webhook triggers immediate deletion of customer-linked data within 48 hours. Database backups are purged on a 90-day rolling schedule.
GDPR and PIPEDA data subject access and erasure requests are honored within 30 days. See our Privacy Policy for full details.
Yes. Specifically:
Not currently. dashboardSMASHBOARD is purpose-built for Shopify. Data sources are whatever Shopify’s API and ShopifyQL expose — orders, products, inventory, and store sessions. Google Analytics, Meta Ads, and other third-party integrations are not supported at this time.
Email support@dashboardSMASHBOARD.com. You can also reach us through the live chat widget at the bottom of this page. We’re a small team — email gets you to an actual human, not a ticket queue.
For general questions and non-urgent help, the support center and documentation cover most common scenarios.