What it does

This component allows you to add a block of text to your dashboard. Use this component for any labeling and providing additional information for your user.

The Text Component supports Markdown to give you the flexibility to configure the style and sizing of your text. You can reference the article here for Markdown.

You can also utilize variables in your text component by using the {{element#}}notation. This is great for adding company names into your dashboards or dynamically describing charts and graphs.

Configuration

Configuration for a text element

Configuration OptionDescription
TextThis is a text area that allows you to type in free form text. Our text elements understand markdown, enabling you to make complex text views in your dashboards.
Text SizeThis allows you to manage the size of the text that appears on the dashboard.
There are three options:
• Normal (default)
• Large
• Extra Large
AlignmentAlignment defines the horizontal & vertical placement of the text inside of the container on the dashboard. There are 3 options in the horizontal direction:
• Left aligned (default)
• Center aligned
• Right aligned
There are 3 options in the vertical direction:
• Top aligned (default)
• Center aligned
• Bottom aligned

Markdown formatting

The text element uses markdown formatting to format the text onto the page. This gives you access to powerful text formatting.

Please reference a markdown guide, such as this one, for more information on the specific syntax available.

Dynamically Generated Values

You may use dynamically generated values in your text elements by using the {{ }} notation, similar to the dataset SQL editor. These values can either be generated from custom variables or through data queried against your Explo datasets.

Using Variables

The variables you have access to are all the variables in the page defined by user inputs, the customers, and passed in from the embedded component.

A variable being used in a text component

For example, in the above dashboard we are using the customer_name variable to make the text shown on the screen be dynamic.

Using Datasets

For dynamic values from datasets, you need to supply both the table name and the column you would like read from. Explo will select the first row of whatever column and table you specify, so you will likely want to make a specific dataset that aggregates a value and then pass that dataset to the text component.

A dataset being used in a text component

For example, in the above dashboard we are using the customers column from dataset1 to make the text shown on screen to be dynamic.