Presentation Mode and Auto Refresh for Live Dashboards
Two dashboard features are built for a dashboard that stays open: on a TV on the wall, on a second screen, or in a Zendesk tab next to your tickets.
Auto Refresh keeps the numbers current without anyone pressing Refresh.
Presentation mode puts the dashboard full screen with nothing but the widgets, sized to be read from across the room.
For a wallboard you want both together: presentation mode for the look, Auto Refresh to keep it live.
Before you start
Anyone who can view a dashboard can use both features. Neither one changes the dashboard for anyone else.
Auto Refresh is switched on per account. If you don't see its button in the dashboard toolbar, contact us and we'll turn it on for your account.
Presentation mode is available on every dashboard in Qvasa. It isn't offered in the Zendesk app, which already shows dashboards without the rest of Qvasa around them.
Turn on Auto Refresh
Open the dashboard.
In the toolbar under the dashboard's name, click the Auto Refresh button (the circular arrows, next to Refresh). It turns dark while it's on.
From then on the tab you're looking at refreshes every minute, and the line above the toolbar shows how long ago the last refresh was. Click the button again to turn it off.
Auto Refresh pauses while you edit the dashboard and starts again when you leave edit mode.
How Auto Refresh behaves
Switching tabs
Only the tab on screen refreshes, so a dashboard with many tabs doesn't load data nobody is looking at. When you switch to a tab that hasn't refreshed in the last minute, it catches up as soon as you open it.
When the dashboard is hidden
If you move to another browser tab or minimise the window, refreshes pause, but Auto Refresh stays on. When a refresh comes due while the dashboard is hidden, the line above the toolbar reads waiting for refresh until the dashboard is visible. When you come back, it reads dashboard visible, resuming refresh, the dashboard refreshes a second later, and Auto Refresh carries on from there.
"Still watching?"
Auto Refresh runs in 4-hour stretches (12 hours in presentation mode). At the end of each stretch Qvasa checks whether anyone is there:
If someone has used the page recently (clicked, typed or scrolled with the mouse or keyboard), the next stretch starts silently.
If nobody has, the dashboard stops updating and asks Still watching? Click Resume and Auto Refresh starts again, with fresh numbers straight away.
This stops a dashboard left open in a forgotten tab from refreshing all night. For a wall TV that nobody touches, use presentation mode (below): its 12-hour stretch covers a working day, so the question comes once a day at most.
Without Auto Refresh, an open dashboard that nobody has used for 15 minutes shows Dashboard paused instead, with the same Resume button. That's why a dashboard on a screen should always have Auto Refresh or presentation mode on.
Auto Refresh in the Zendesk app
Dashboards you open in the Qvasa app inside Zendesk have Auto Refresh too, on accounts that have it switched on. It sits in the dashboard toolbar next to the Refresh button and works the same way: click it to turn it on, and the dashboard keeps itself current while you work tickets.
When you move away from the Qvasa app in Zendesk, the dashboard pauses after about 20 seconds and shows that it's paused. When you come back to it, it refreshes straight away, with Auto Refresh still on.
Presentation mode
Open the dashboard and click the Present (full screen) button, the last one in the toolbar.
The dashboard goes full screen and read-only. The Qvasa side navigation, the dashboard's top bar and the Edit button are hidden. Refresh, Auto Refresh, the dashboard's tabs and its filters stay.
Use the zoom controls next to the toolbar (−, the percentage, +) to size the widgets for the screen, from 50% to 200%. You can also press +, − and 0 on the keyboard; 0 (or clicking the percentage) goes back to 100%.
Turn on Auto Refresh if it isn't on already, so the screen stays live.
The zoom you pick is remembered for that dashboard in that browser, so the TV opens at the same size next time.
To leave presentation mode, press Esc or click Exit.
Bookmark a dashboard for a TV
Add ?presentation=true to the end of the dashboard's address, for example https://www.qvasa.com/dynamic_dashboards/1234?presentation=true, and bookmark it on the TV's browser. The dashboard then opens in presentation mode, with your saved zoom. Browsers only allow full screen after a click, so press Present once after it opens (or use the browser's own full-screen key).
Good to know
No Auto Refresh button: Auto Refresh isn't switched on for your account yet. Contact us to turn it on.
The Present button is greyed out: the dashboard is in edit mode. Leave edit mode first.
"The browser blocked full screen": some browsers refuse full screen in certain situations. Presentation mode stays on without it; use the browser's own full-screen key if you need it.
The TV says "Still watching?" every morning: nobody touches a wall screen, so a 12-hour stretch ends with the question. Click Resume once at the start of the day.