# Business Intelligence Dashboards <a href="https://docs.wallarm.com/about-wallarm/subscription-plans.md#core-subscription-plans"><img src="../../../images/api-security-tag.svg" style="border: none;"></a>

In Wallarm, you have the ability to build and customize your own dashboards. This allows you to collect, present, and share security data in a way that is most relevant to your business, helping you make more informed decisions about security measures. This article describes how to create, use, and share such dashboards.

## Requirements

BI dashboards require:

* The [Advanced API Security](https://docs.wallarm.com/about-wallarm/subscription-plans.md#core-subscription-plans) subscription plan
* Properly configured [API Sessions](https://docs.wallarm.com/api-sessions/overview.md) (data source for all dashboards)

## Use cases

BI dashboards help you solve concrete tasks, for example:

* **Present security data to stakeholders** — Build a dashboard with the metrics that matter for your business (e.g. request volume, blocked traffic, trends) and share a live link or PDF snapshot with leadership or partners.
* **Track security trends over time** — Use line or area charts to see how metrics change week-over-week or month-over-month, and spot anomalies or the impact of changes.
* **Drill down by application or other dimensions** — Use labels and filters to see per-application or per-environment data, so different teams can focus on their scope.

To see a ready-made example, explore the [Financial metrics dashboard in Wallarm Playground](https://playground.wallarm.com/dashboards/63?utm_source=wallarm_docs_bi) (read-only).

## Adding dashboards

You can:

* Create any number of dashboards.
* Populate your dashboards with multiple [charts](#setting-up-charts) of different types.
* Resize and change chart positions by drag-and-drop.
* Add a dashboard to favorites; this will display it in Wallarm's dashboard menu on the left.

    ![BI dashboards](https://docs.wallarm.com/images/user-guides/dashboard/bi-dashboards.png)

To add a BI dashboard:

1. Go to Wallarm Console → **BI Dashboards**.
1. Click **Add dashboard**. The **Dashboard Builder** is displayed.
1. Set the dashboard name.
1. Add and position charts.
1. Save changes. The new dashboard is added to the list. Click to view.

## Setting up charts

Depending on the chart type, settings may vary. Available types:

* Bar chart
* Line chart
* Area chart
* Donut chart
* Single metric

![BI dashboards - chart types](https://docs.wallarm.com/images/user-guides/dashboard/bi-dashboards-chart-types.png)

Generally, to set up a chart, you need to select a metric and how it will be presented on the chart. Note that:

* Charts use [API Sessions](https://docs.wallarm.com/api-sessions/overview.md) as the default data source (so far, only one available).
* Chart title is required.
* You can use **labels** to split data of a single metric "by label". For example, add the "Number of requests" metric, then add the "Application" label to see the number of requests for each application.

    ![BI dashboards - using labels](https://docs.wallarm.com/images/user-guides/dashboard/bi-dashboards-labels.png)

* You can use **filters**. Filters are chart-wide, so if you have several metrics in the chart, they will all be affected by the selected filters. Consider the interaction between chart and dashboard filters.

## Using and sharing

You can:

* If added to favorites—click the dashboard name in Wallarm's left menu.
* Access the dashboard by clicking its name in Wallarm Console → **BI Dashboards**.
* Redefine dashboard filters:

    * Default period is **the last week**
    * All applications' data is displayed by default
    * Traffic from all IPs is considered by default; change this by including or excluding IPs or CIDR notations
    * Consider dashboard filters interacting with chart filters.

* To share the dashboard's live state, click **Share** on its page and send the copied link.
* To share the dashboard's snapshot, apply filters, then click **Download PDF**.

## Limitations

BI dashboards use [API Sessions](https://docs.wallarm.com/api-sessions/overview.md) data and may differ by up to 5% from the [Threat Prevention dashboard](https://docs.wallarm.com/user-guides/dashboards/threat-prevention.md) or billing counts in edge cases, such as: 

* [Allowlisted IPs](https://docs.wallarm.com/user-guides/ip-lists/overview.md)
* [Sampling](https://docs.wallarm.com/user-guides/events/grouping-sampling.md#sampling-of-hits) during traffic spikes
* Limited [processing-node resources](https://docs.wallarm.com/admin-en/configuration-guides/allocate-resources-for-node.md) causing missed exports