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This article applies to the following Customer Insights roles: Viewer; Developer

If you’re working with a legacy Dashboard, your download capabilities are separated into two menu options: Download as PDF and Download as CSVs:

The following sections explain how to use each of those options:

• Download as CSVs
• Download as PDF File

Download as CSVs

Downloading your Dashboard as a set of CSV (comma-separated values) files is about the easiest thing you can do in Customer Insights: while viewing a Dashboard all you have to do is click the Options icon and then click Download CSVs. As soon as you do that your Dashboard data is downloaded as a series of CSV files, one file for each visualization on the Dashboard.

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Only the visualization data is downloaded. Other elements that might appear on screen (e.g., notes) are not downloaded.

The raw data in one of those CSV files will look similar to this:

Profile Dim Gender,Profile Fact Count Profiles,Calculation 1
Female,"76,371,202",0.5723363363793658
Male,"53,848,112",0.4035451889709129
Other / None / Not Specified,"2,081,749",0.015600914542649313
notstated,"884,375",0.006627628402201939
nonbinary,"151,209",0.0011331811313849364
declined,"35,163",0.00026351637880607975
,"133,371,810",1

That same data looks like this when opened in a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel:

As implied above, there aren't any options available when downloading a Dashboard as a CSV file: you click Download CSVs and a .ZIP file containing the individual CSV files (again, one file for every visualization on the Dashboard) is downloaded to the Downloads folder on your local computer. You can’t specify a different folder to download the file to nor can you redirect the download to another computer or device. 

Similarly, the file name will be the word Dashboard followed by a hyphen (-) followed by the name of the Dashboard (in all lowercase letters). If the Dashboard name includes blank spaces (e.g., Test Dashboard), those spaces are replaced by underscores (_). In other words, the Dashboard Test Dashboard will be downloaded to a zip file named Dashboard-test_dashboard.zip. If a file by that name already exists in the Downloads folder then the appropriate number is appended to the download filename. For example, if you download Test Dashboard and the file Dashboard-test_dashboard.zip already exists, the new file is given the name Dashboard-test_dashboard-2.zip.

Incidentally, the individual files contained within the .ZIP file use a similar naming convention based on the title assigned to the visualizations. Thus a visualization titled Profiles by Gender results in a CSV file with the filename profiles_by_gender.csv.

Download as PDF

When you download a Dashboard as a CSV file, you get the actual Dashboard data, data you can then manipulate to your heart’s content (for example, you can load that data into a spreadsheet program and create your own charts and graphs). And, for some people. and for some occasions, that might be just what you need.

At other times, however, you might prefer to have the exact same visualizations shown in the Dashboard. That can be done by clicking the Dashboard’s Options icon and then clicking Download as PDF. In turn, that displays the following dialog box:

At this point, you have several options available to you. If you want to download the Dashboard by using the default PDF options, just click Download. In turn, a new tab is opened in your browser and you’ll see a progress screen similar to this:

As soon as the PDF has been created (a process that can take a few minutes depending on the complexity of your Dashboard), a PDF file that exactly replicates your Dashboard (same visualizations, same notes, same everything) is copied to your Downloads folder. (Again, you can’t specify a different folder or a different computer/device for the download.) The filename for the PDF will be the name of the Dashboard (e.g., Test Dashboard) followed by a timestamp indicating when the download took place; for example, Test Dashboard 2020-12-09T1227.pdf. In this sample filename, 2020-12-09 represents the year, month, and day when the download occurred, with T12:27 representing the download time (12:27 on a 24-hour clock). That means that, if you do a second download of this same file, that file will have a different timestamp, which helps to avoid filename collisions.

Alternatively, you can click Open in Browser to open that same PDF file in another browser tab. In that case, nothing will actually be downloaded to your computer. (But don't worry: most browsers provide a way for you to save PDF files being viewed online.)

If a little customization seems to be in order, click Advanced Options to display the tweaks that can be made to your download:

In the following sections, we explain what those advanced options do for you.

Single column format

By default, a PDF file perfectly replicates your Dashboard; if the Dashboard shows two visualizations side-by-side then the PDF file also shows those two Dashboards side-by-side:

If you select Single column format, however, then your Dashboards are stacked one on top of the other (in, yes, a single column):

Expand table

Suppose your Dashboard includes a table, but, due to a lack of space, all the rows in the table can’t be displayed on the Dashboard. That’s fine; that’s what the table scrollbars are for. For better or worse, however, scrollbars don’t work in PDF files. Because of that, your table will only display the rows visible on the Dashboard:

Any other data in the table won’t be available to a user looking at the PDF file.

Or at least that data won’t be available unless you select Expand tables. Do that, and the all the table rows will be visible in the PDF file:

Paper size

By default, the paper size of your PDF files are auto-configured based on the size of your Dashboard; that means you might end up with oddball paper sizes such as 15.54" x 7.21". For viewing onscreen, that's fine. But  if you need to print the PDF file .... 

If the paper size is important to you, click Paper size and select the appropriate size from the dropdown list:

After you pick a size you’ll also be given the option of setting the page orientation to either Portrait (e.g., 8 ½ x 11") or Landscape (e.g., 11 x 8 ½"):