HealthCan it be trusted and acted on?
Vanity dashboard
Big, flattering numbers that only ever grow and never change a decision.
Click a widget to see its data
Growth dashboard
Marketing
Updated dailyShare
Total sign-ups, all time
1,204,381
A new record, again
Page views
9.8M
+12%
App downloads
412k
+9%
Social followers
88k
+4%
Cumulative sign-ups
The data model behind it
Product sign-ups and activityThe vanity version reads one table, fact_signup, with no date filter: a cumulative count can only grow. Switch to the sanity rewrite and watch it pull in the activity fact and the cohort on dim_user.
- Tables read
- 2 of 5
- Joins
- 1
- Fact type
- Transaction fact (sign-ups) and periodic snapshot (daily activity)
- Grain
- Sign-ups: one row per new user · Activity: one row per user per day
- Refresh
- Daily
Widgets
Highlighted: every table this view reads. Pick a widget to isolate its query.
Where it sits in the taxonomy
It is used and fresh, so not a zombie, but its headline numbers would not change anyone’s action if they moved: all-time totals, raw counts, page views. The failure is relevance.
- In the last quarter, has anyone opened it and has its data refreshed?Yes
- If its headline numbers moved, would someone act differently?No, they only look good
- Vanity dashboard
At a glance
- Check failed
- Actionable metrics
- Symptom
- Up and to the right, always
- Root cause
- Cumulative or raw counts with no denominator or cohort
- Test
- Ask “what would we do if this fell 20%?”
Not to be confused with
- Sanity dashboard
- Sanity metrics can fall and drive action. Vanity metrics can only rise.
- Kitchen-sink dashboard
- A kitchen sink shows too many numbers. A vanity dashboard shows the wrong ones, however few.
How to recognise it
- All-time totals in the biggest font
- No targets, rates or cohorts
- Numbers presented to impress rather than to decide
How to fix it
- Replace totals with rates: active users over sign-ups, revenue per customer
- Cut by cohort, so new growth cannot hide churn
- Give each metric a target and an owner