ELI5: What do Analyze Boards do that Dashboards (New) can't do?

Dashboards are very good at presenting an easily-digestible, interactive view of project metadata, but there are significant restrictions on what they can show.  For example the metrics they expose are fixed and can't be modified.

Wrike Analyze exposes your entire (well, most of it) dataset and allows you to create complex reports that can you can drill deep into, in a similar way to Excel pivot tables. If it exists in Wrike it can be reported on in WA (well, except timelog comments, grumble!).  WA allows you to bring multiple data dimensions into a report and can include any of the custom fields that you may use.  It gives you the ability to create complex expressions to return just the data you want.

The downsides of WA reports include being relatively static.  You can drill into them but they are less visually appealing than dashboards.  They are also limited in their appearance, but their intent is to get deep insights into your data, not necessarily look pretty.

indeed >> What Phil Taylor said!

New Dashboards are visually great, for high-level snapshots mostly, I'd say. A huge downside (in my opinion) is that you can't edit the name of the metrics > it shows exactly the field name as is in the system, which isn't always desirable.

Analyze allows you to build more complex pivot tables and generally much more flexibility and possibilities on manipulating data to show different items. Especially when you need to report on 2+ data items the new dashboards really lack functionality there.
Analyze also has the ability to show trends etc over time. The downside with Analyze is the limited sharing options with external people (really long loading times for the pages).

Thanks Phil Taylor and Fleur Komen! 

I took the liberty of having chatgpt synthesize your comments into an easy-to-read table. I look forward to others' suggestions/additions. 

+------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
|                      Wrike Analyze (WA)                    |                         Dashboards                            |
+------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| Exposes most of the Wrike dataset, allowing detailed        | Good at presenting high-level, interactive project             |
| reporting                                                   | metadata views                                                |
+------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| Enables the creation of complex reports, like Excel pivot   | Metrics are fixed and cannot be modified                      |
| tables                                                      |                                                               |
+------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| Supports custom fields and multiple data dimensions         | Visually appealing, great for high-level snapshots             |
+------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| Allows creation of complex expressions for custom data      | Cannot edit metric names; uses system field names              |
+------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| Can show trends over time                                   | Lacks functionality for reporting on multiple data items       |
+------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| Limited visual appeal; focus is on deep data insights       | Interactive but limited in the depth of data displayed         |
+------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| Limited external sharing options; reports have slow loading | Visually polished but less flexible in data manipulation       |
+------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| Static and less visually engaging than dashboards           | Ideal for high-level overviews but restricted in flexibility   |
+------------------------------------------------------------+---------------------------------------------------------------+

Phil,
Can you please elaborate on "the metrics they expose are fixed and can't be modified"? What do you want to be able to do and cannot? Do you use formula CFs in reporting?

Fleur,
Can you please provide examples for "report on 2+ data items"? It's possible to have multiple metrics in new dashboards, but I guess there are things you need to do but can't. What are those things? 

Laura,
I would say that dashboards should be considered as the default option. They're simple, realtime, fast and nicer visually. Most of the reporting and analytics can be done with them and only some advanced use cases like complex formulas may require Analyze. 

Vladimir Bugay Community Team at Wrike Wrike Product Manager Conosci le straordinarie funzionalità di Wrike e le best practices

Vladimir Bugay Wrike Team member Conosci le straordinarie funzionalità di Wrike e le best practices