Dashboards Customizable / Linked to Underlying Report

JoelC

I spent the last few days digging into the dashboards in Quicken for Windows.

In digging I discovered:

i) Default dashboards are not configured to my needs (i.e., exclusion / inclusion of categories, transfers, etc.).

ii) Clicking on dashboards brings up the reports which underly the dashboards. The reports can then be configured to my needs.

iii) Although the modified reports in ii) can be saved they do not change / impact the dashboard.

iv) A result of not the dashboard not changing / linking to the report in iii) is that the usefulness of the dashboards is limited.

THE IDEA: If a user clicks on a dashboard to bring up the underlying report, customizes the reports and then saves the report, the dashboard and the saved report should be linked (i.e., teh dashboard should change). This would make the dashboards truly useful which, at least for me, the currently are not.

P.S. Hoping this gets lost of votes so that it happens!

Thank you.

Chris_QPW

Have you tried looking at the Classic Views?

They are much more customizable.

Frankly I think the "new Dashboard" has to be either considered "for the naive user that doesn't know about or need the full power of the classic one."

I get that people have screamed for "modernize", but from what I see they created a few cards, with minor amounts of customizing and are nowhere near replacing the "classic" one. Until they get that far all I can think that the "new Dashboard" is worth is for "naive/new users" that want "simple". I think this is the kind of thing that belongs in Simplifi, not Quicken. That pretty much goes for the Investment Dashboard too.

Past that, you should understand of the ones that do have some kind of "zoom" only Income & Expense and Top Payees actually go to a report. The others are either popups without any kind of customizing or views that are in Quicken that are used for more than this purpose.

JoelC

@Chris_QPW , appreciate your above post and have taken a deeper dive.

I have segmented the dashboards into two categories name i) classic view = Home tab / Main View and ii) dashboard view = all other tabs / view.

I find the classic views are fairly useful in that they can be modified and saved. I have setup a few of these and will monitor / try them over the next few months to give them a good workout.

I find the dashboards views essentially directional / useless as a) a user needs to run a report to understand what is being reported in the dashboard and ii) they cannot be customized / setup to meet the particular users need.

CONCLUSIONS:

i) Classic views are useful BUT to be truly useful they need to be tied to saved report. For example, a) limitation 1 = I have setup the classic view dashboard but I need to tie it back to my saved report to make sure that they are both configured the same (i.e., reporting the same I got) and b) limitation 2 = I may not be able to get the classic view to match my saved report because the classic view is less configurable than the report. Were the classic view "linked" to a saved report, then I would be golden!

ii) Dashboard view are, at least for me and in the words of Tony Soprano, "Fuhgeddaboudit!" I won’t be using these!

iii) The other limitation / problem — and this may be the biggest of all — is that anyone who does not take the time to dig into the dashboards to understand what is / is not being reported may not act on full / proper information.

I do hope this idea gets more votes as I think it would be and extremely helpful feature!

Thank you.

mshiggins

"Classic views are useful BUT to be truly useful they need to be tied to saved report."

It seems to me this idea has it exactly backwards.

I believe the reason Home tab classic "widgets" and dashboard "cards" have an option to create a report, is to allow the user to see the detail making up the values in the widget/card. So the report should always have the exact same customizations as the widget/card - rather than the other way around.

[The new "cards" (and to some extent, the classic "widgets" - though sadly, Quicken may be planning to phase out the classic widgets) could definitely use additional customization options.]

In several cases, existing Quicken reports have a graph that is basically the same as (or very similar to) a home tab widget/card. 

"Saving" such a Quicken report gives the user the option to create, what is effectively, the equivalent of a home tab widget/card. 

The Quicken Toolbar can be customized to have an icon for a single saved report, or an icon for a saved report folder. A Toolbar icon can be used to directly display a single saved graph/report; or to select a single saved graph/report from a folder containing multiple saved graphs/reports.

Trying to tie home tab widget/card customizations to saved reports makes no sense to me. 

Quicken is already unable to consistently retain the home tab widget/card customizations, and already unable to avoid corrupting saved report customizations.  Making home tab widgets/cards no more than another way to display a saved report just creates one more failure point, with no apparent added value.

If the customizations on home tab widgets/cards are not working correctly, or if the home tab widget/card customizations are not treated the same way as report customizations, or if either are frequently getting corrupted; then Quicken should fix the underlying problem(s) - not add another display subject to the same unreliability.

-JP

JoelC

@mshiggins , as always, I thank you for your insights and response.

i) I did not know that the that a) the Quicken Toolbar can be customized to have an icon for a single saved report, or an icon for a saved report folder and b) a Toolbar icon can be used to directly display a single saved graph/report; or to select a single saved graph/report from a folder containing multiple saved graphs/reports. Thank you for sharing.

ii) I appreciate your perspective on the use of the classic widgets and the "dashboard cards", particularly given that it is different than mine. I did spend some time last night customizing a few of the classic widgets and find these to be useful. I would add that when configured correctly these are more useful than teh reports because all I need to do is to click a tab and can immediately see the output. That said, thank you for the opposing view.

Joel

Chris_QPW

The more I think of this the more I believe that it isn't a good idea, sorry.

Here is how I hear the stated benefit.

"I have zoomed down and want to make a change that will affect the original setup.".

This is something that you will not find anywhere in Quicken.

If I zoom in a report and it switches to say the register or a view, I definitely don't expect the changes I make there to be pushed back to the report. And in fact, I wouldn't want it at least most of the time. What's more there isn't a one-to-one relationship between the options where you started and where you end up. The "push back" would be pretty complicated.

Also, if there was a linked report, I also wouldn't want it to be hidden. There are already too many things in Quicken that are hidden and done in the background. When one of them mess up, there isn't any way to correct them.

So, for what I consider a "bit of laziness" (you can always just go back to the original card/item/widget and change it) you have a inconsistent (not all cards/items/widgets zoom out to reports), error prone feature.

JoelC

@Chris_QPW appreciate the response and I hear you!

I have abandoned the widgets as I do not them sufficiently configurable or useless.

I am testing the widgets and will come back to you but I hear what you are saying!

I am guessing / thinking that I will use the widgets to provide a directional view of where things are at (because they are more configurable than teh widgets) and then dig into things via a related but not linked custom report that I will save!

Will let you know towards the end of Jauary!

Chris_QPW

I guess what the difference in the point of view is really is that the Home tab is a "quick look" at the current state, not the path to all the detailed analysis one might want to do. Whereas if one finds themselves consistently needing a given customized report, they should create that and use it instead.

What might be a nice feature request is to have a widget that just displays a given customized report.

JoelC

I guess what the difference in the point of view is really is that the Home tab is a "quick look" at the current state, not the path to all the detailed analysis one might want to do. Whereas if one finds themselves consistently needing a given customized report, they should create that and use it instead.

Agreed! The other difference is what is he point of teh widgets / dashboards if they do not report what you need / want.

What might be a nice feature request is to have a widget that just displays a given customized report.

Which is essentially what I am asking / suggesting.

JoelC

Apologies in advance should this be the wrong place to ask but I do not know where else to do so.

I have been digging into the widgets and have found a few math mistakes (i.e., addition errors, date range erros, ect.). How / where do I report these?

Thank you.

JoelC

I am just saying, I would seriously like to work with widget / dashboard team to help in teh development / planning / testing of the results (even without the linked reports)!

Quicken, please, take me up on my offer!!

JoelC

I am very serious about my previous post!

Quicken please let me work with you on the dashboards / widgets to fix the math mistakes!!

q_lurker

@JoelC Perhaps you need to become a beta tester, though some who have became frustrated with that avenue

https://www.quicken.com/beta

JoelC

q_lurker, appreciated. I signed up. Let's see whether they let me in! :)

JoelC

After a lot of further playing the Quicken views (as opposed to the widgets) I do note that the Quicken view charts / graphics are nice to have. Would be excellent to incorporate this capability into the reports!

For example, I have created parallel reports tweaked to my needs but those reports — at least as far as I can tell - do not have the ability to teh charts / graphics!

GailNestor

I am following this thread as I have experienced the same frustration at the lack of freedom to customize the Dashboard data display. For how much we pay each year for Quicken, I would expect more new features and addressing of issues like these. I read the notes for each new download. There are many more fixes than enhancements.

The Dashboard as it stands is misleading and useless. I just hope enough people lend support to the above suggestions so that it might float to the top of the programmer queue.