How dashboardSMASHBOARD Calculates Your Card's Signals
~6 min readHow dashboardSMASHBOARD Calculates Your Card's Signals
This section explains what each signal on your card means and how it behaves — written for anyone who wants to understand what they're looking at, not for reverse-engineering the math behind it.
Status — Where You Stand Right Now
What Status answers: "Where does this metric stand right now, relative to its target?"
Status is a snapshot, refreshed whenever your card's data refreshes (every 5–15 minutes, depending on your plan). It does not project the future — that's Forecast.
Status shows one of these labels, from best to worst:
- Exceeding — comfortably ahead of target
- Goal Reached — target met
- Needs Attention — modestly behind target
- At Risk — meaningfully behind target
- Critical — significantly behind target
For metrics where lower is better (for example bounce rate), the comparison direction flips automatically — a bounce rate well under its goal still shows as Exceeding.
A few special states you may see instead of a label:
- Early Window — too little of the period has elapsed to assess fairly (roughly the first fifth of the period); this is expected behavior, not an error, and clears on its own as the period progresses.
- Building History — a relative (grow-by-%) goal was set, but there's no prior-period data yet to compare against; resolves once a full comparison period exists, or switch to a fixed target if you'd rather not wait.
- Paused — the card was manually paused, or data is temporarily unavailable.
- Achieved — the period's goal was met and locked in.
Forecast — Where You'll Likely Finish
What Forecast answers: "If this metric keeps up its current pace, will it hit the goal by the end of the period?"
Forecast only applies to calendar-period windows (This month, This quarter) — rolling windows (Last 7 days) have no fixed end date, so Forecast shows "—" for those.
For metrics that accumulate over the period (sessions, users, key events, revenue), Forecast projects your current pace forward across the rest of the period. For metrics that represent a rate or a snapshot (engagement rate, bounce rate, sessions per user), your current value already is the estimate — there's nothing to project.
Forecast shows a label just like Status does — Will Exceed, On Pace, Slipping, Off Track, Will Miss — or Insufficient Data early in the period, for the same reason Status shows Early Window: too little of the period has elapsed for a pace-based projection to mean anything yet.
The projection assumes the rest of the period looks like the average day so far — it doesn't know about day-of-week patterns, seasonality, campaigns, or planned ad spend changes. When your daily numbers have been especially choppy, the Forecast cell may show a ⚠ to flag that the projection is less certain than usual.
Why Status and Forecast can disagree: Status only looks at what's happened so far; Forecast also accounts for how much time is left. Early in a period, Status often looks worse (you've only earned a fraction of the goal) while Forecast can look better (there's still plenty of time to catch up). Late in a period, the two converge. Watch Forecast early in the period; watch Status late.
Reading Status and Forecast Together
| Status | Forecast | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| At Risk / Critical | Off Track / Will Miss | Both present and future signals are negative — act now |
| Needs Attention | Slipping | Trending the wrong way — close monitoring needed |
| Needs Attention | On Pace / Will Exceed | Behind today, but pace is fine — likely to recover |
| Critical | On Pace | Looks alarming, but pace is actually on track — typical early in a period |
The Alert pulse: on cards that use the Alert display, the card border glows a color derived from the Status band — green for the healthy labels, amber for Needs Attention, red for At Risk or Critical.
Gap — How Far Ahead or Behind
Gap is the plain-language distance between where you are and your goal right now — shown as a signed amount ("1,240 sessions to go" or "310 ahead"). For metrics where lower is better, the direction flips automatically, same as Status.
Tips and Best Practices
Start simple. Begin with the four ready-made dashboards and keep the three to five cards you actually act on. Too many numbers at once defeats the purpose. A good starting set: Total Sessions, New Users, Engagement Rate and Key Events.
Match your review cadence. Use calendar-period windows (This month) if you review monthly or quarterly — they're the only ones that get Forecast and Time Left. Use rolling windows (Last 30 days) for ongoing health checks.
Use multiple dashboards. One dashboard per question works well — a weekly marketing check-in, a monthly board view, a campaign dashboard with a custom date range.
Use the Alert display to catch problems early. A red pulse on a card is visible from across the room, and you can also get emailed or messaged when a card changes status — see Notifications.
Relative vs. fixed goals. Relative goals (grow X%) work best when you don't know the exact number ahead of time. Fixed targets (reach X) work best for quotas and committed numbers.
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