How to Build Dataview Powered Dashboards in Obsidian

Summary

In this video, CreaDev Labs explores the transformative power of the Dataview plugin within Obsidian. Dataview turns the Obsidian vault into a searchable database, providing a flexible system to track tasks and projects. The video offers a beginner-friendly guide to setting up simple but visually effective dashboards without altering any complex settings. By leveraging Dataview’s capabilities like lists and tables, users can manage projects effectively. The tutorial also covers how to group projects by status, sort them by metadata like deadlines, and create intuitive mini-calendars to track project timelines.

Highlights

• Dataview plugin turns your Obsidian vault into a powerful and flexible database. 🚀
• Create lists of projects and group them by their status easily with Dataview queries. 🗂️
• Visualize project information using Dataview's table feature and add columns of metadata. 📊
• Design mini-calendars to quickly glance at project deadlines using the calendar query. 🌟
• Utilize tags over folders for more flexible project organization and retrieval. 🏷️

Key Takeaways

• Learn how to transform your Obsidian vault into an efficient database using the Dataview plugin. 📚
• Discover ways to create informative dashboards without diving into complex settings. 🛠️
• Group and filter your projects by status for clearer organization and management. 🔍
• Use Dataview's table view to display detailed project information like deadlines and areas. 📋
• Design a mini-calendar within Obsidian to visually track project timelines and deadlines. 🗓️

Overview

The Dataview plugin in Obsidian is a game-changer for users looking to transform their vaults into searchable databases. This tool simplifies the tracking and organization of tasks and projects, making them easily accessible based on various criteria. While its flexibility can initially be overwhelming, this guide focuses on simple queries to help beginners set up dashboards effectively.

Starting with installation and enabling the plugin, the video guides you through creating dashboards by using Dataview's list and table features. These tools allow you to compile projects, group them by status, and visualize pertinent details like deadlines and related areas. By using intuitive commands, users can maintain a clear and organized overview of their tasks.

Beyond lists and tables, Dataview enables the creation of mini-calendars, providing a quick look at upcoming deadlines. This flexible system enhances task management by allowing users to tag projects instead of constraining them within specific folders, ensuring a more adaptable workflow. The tutorial concludes with tips on accessing template queries, to embed these solutions seamlessly into any project.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Dataview Plugin Dataview Plugin is introduced as a powerful tool in Obsidian that turns your vault into a searchable database.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Setting Up Projects Folder The chapter focuses on setting up a projects folder within a task manager vault that has been updated since a previous video. The projects folder originally contained three subfolders for active, future, and completed projects, but they have been deleted. A dashboard will be created instead to better visualize project statuses.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Installing Dataview Plugin The chapter titled 'Installing Dataview Plugin' discusses the initial steps needed to work with sample projects that have been set up with specific metadata like tags for project identification, deadlines, areas, and status. To effectively use this metadata for searching and organizing, the installation of the Dataview plugin is necessary. The speaker guides the reader through the process of going to the settings, navigating to community plugins, and ensuring the Dataview plugin is installed.
• 01:30 - 02:30: Creating a Simple List Query In this chapter, the focus is on creating a simple list query using the data view plugin. The chapter begins with deleting any existing configuration to demonstrate the process from scratch. It highlights the popularity of the Browse Data View plugin, emphasizing its immediate availability for installation and activation. The chapter concludes by stating that the default settings of the data view are sufficient for the discussed purposes, as no additional configuration is required for the current task.
• 02:30 - 04:00: Grouping Projects by Status In this chapter, the focus is on organizing projects by their status using a dashboard. The installation of a data view plugin facilitates this process, allowing for the visualization of project information in an easily accessible format. The chapter guides the reader through creating a new canvas for the dashboard, where helper files are utilized for setup. The main feature of this dashboard is a comprehensive list of all existing projects in the vault, categorized by their status. The explanation includes details on how to label and manage these elements effectively.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Creating Cards for Different Statuses In this chapter titled 'Creating Cards for Different Statuses,' the process of generating a data view query for all projects is explained. The speaker introduces a method to list all projects using a specific syntax. The explanation highlights the use of back ticks and emphasizes the importance of recognizing the command by writing it in all caps. The data source, specified as the 'projects' folder, is set to retrieve and compile the desired list.
• 05:00 - 06:30: Using Table Queries and Sorting Data This chapter discusses how to use table queries and sort data effectively. It begins with instructions on organizing projects within a specific folder structure, providing a visual list that allows easy access and interaction with different projects. Users can click to view and hover to see the contents of each project, utilizing a straightforward approach to data visualization. The emphasis is on the simplicity and functionality of data management using lists and the potential range of operations that can be performed on such lists. This foundational understanding sets the stage for more advanced data handling and manipulation.
• 06:30 - 08:40: Using Tags for Projects This chapter introduces the concept of using tags in project management. It begins with a demonstration of accessing the source code of a query by hovering over a list to reveal an edit option. The focus then shifts to organizing projects by their status. The chapter emphasizes the importance of grouping projects based on their status tags, which will be explored further in the context provided.
• 08:40 - 11:00: Creating a Mini Calendar View The chapter titled 'Creating a Mini Calendar View' provides instructions on grouping items by status in a project management context. It explains how to extract and display file links associated with each status, emphasizing the need to modify list configurations to include file link attributes. The chapter focuses on enhancing the visualization of project statuses with direct access to related files.
• 11:00 - 13:00: Setting Up Query Templates The chapter titled 'Setting Up Query Templates' discusses organizing project files based on their status using different cards on a dashboard. It highlights the potential for an overwhelming amount of data if all project files are shown together, suggesting the use of separate cards to manage and display statuses more effectively. The process of creating these cards for a dashboard is also mentioned.
• 13:00 - 13:30: Conclusion and Call to Action In this chapter titled 'Conclusion and Call to Action', the speaker discusses handling different project statuses, particularly focusing on those with the 'holding tank' status. The 'holding tank' represents future projects that have not yet been started. The speaker then provides a tutorial on writing a data view query to list projects from the projects folder that specifically have the status of 'holding tank'. The process described involves specifying the criteria of the query as 'where status equals holding tank'. This method aids in organizing and identifying future tasks that require attention.

How to Build Dataview Powered Dashboards in Obsidian Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 data view is a powerful obsidian Community plug-in that can transform your Vault into a searchable database with data view you can easily filter and collect notes based on any criteria I personally use it to track tasks and projects across my entire Vault data view is incredibly flexible and this can make it a little overwhelming for beginners so in this video we'll focus on some simple queries for setting up visually informative dashboards that will enable you to take quick action on
• 00:30 - 01:00 important Tasks and notes I've made some updates to the task manager Vault that I built in a previous video we're going to be working inside of the projects folder this projects folder used to have three subfolders for active uh future and completed projects I've gone ahead and deleted those folders we're not going to need them anymore because we're going to create a dashboard that will make it a lot easier for us to see what projects we have and what their status is is so
• 01:00 - 01:30 I've created several uh sample projects and given them some metadata that we can work with the tags uh tell us that it's a project we're going to be able to search either by the project folder or the project tag got a deadline an area that these belong to and then a status now before we can do anything with this we have to install the data view plugin so we're going to go over to settings we're going to go to community plugins and then we're going to make sure that the data View view plugin is installed
• 01:30 - 02:00 so actually I'm going to delete it really fast just so you can see the process we're go to browse data view is a very popular uh plugin so it's going to appear right up at the top so you click on it hit install and then enable it now there are tons of settings that you can do for data view uh for the purposes of this video we're actually not going to worry about changing any of the settings what we want to do is things that are right out of the box
• 02:00 - 02:30 easy easy to do so now that we've got the data view plug-in installed we can actually start building our dashboard now I'm going to go up to my utilities folders where I have all sorts of files that are kind of helper files so we're going to create a new canvas for our dashboard and then we're going to go down to the bottom here and drag to add a card we're drag it up and we're going to make a list of all the projects that we have in our vault so I'm going to list label this with a
• 02:30 - 03:00 header we're going to say all projects and then we're going to do three back ticks the back tick is the key right next to the one on the left of it and then we write the word data view so it knows that this is a data view query and then we're just going to say list we're going to do it all caps so that we uh recognize this as a list and then I'm going to give it a source that I want the list to be made from so in this case the projects folder so I'm going to say
• 03:00 - 03:30 from and then I'm going to put in quotes and then the name of the folder and I'm going to go down to these three back ticks at the bottom and hit enter and now you can see we have a nice list of all of our projects and we can click on these and open them up and we can see those different projects and we could just hover over them and see the contents as well that is as simple as it can get when it comes to data View and there's a lot that you can do with just lists of different notes now if we want
• 03:30 - 04:00 to get back into editing this query we just hover over this list and we get this little code icon that shows up in the top right we can click on this and we'll get back into the source code for this query now I want to be able to group these different projects by their status as you can see in here each of these projects has a status and I want this list to have them grouped by that status let's go back over here now in order for this grouping to make sense so let me show you really fast when you say
• 04:00 - 04:30 Group by this is how you make a grouping and I say status that just gives me each of the statuses that are available across these different projects I don't just want the status I want to be able to see what the files are get the links to them so in order to be able to do that we have to tell the list that we want the link to the file so for this we're going to say rows. file. link and
• 04:30 - 05:00 that will give us our statuses and it will show us each of the files underneath those statuses or that that have those statuses now this might get a little bit big um if we have every done project in here this list is going to get really really long so we want to split these up between different cards inside of our dashboard here so I'm going to zoom out a little bit I'm going to grab another card what I'm going to do is I'm going to to create a card for
• 05:00 - 05:30 each of these statuses so for this I'm going to say holding tank so holding tank is our future projects we haven't started working on them yet enter a couple times and we're going to write a data view query we're going to say list and then we're going to say from and we're going to go for our projects folder and then we want just the ones that have the status of holding tank so we're going to say where status equals
• 05:30 - 06:00 holding tank so now we have our two projects that have the status of holding tank in this card so let's go ahead and create the other ones so now we've got those cards for each of the statuses and it's a little easier kind of now to see the the position of where these projects are so we've got ones that are not yet started we've got ones that are actively being worked on and then we've got projects that are done and this list can grow and grow and grow grow it's not
• 06:00 - 06:30 going to make it hard to find my holding tank projects things that I want to do later so it's nice that we've got these lists separated out but I want to see a little bit more information about each of the projects at a glance here so right now we've been working with lists there's another query type that we can do and that is table going to zoom in on the holding tank card and then we're going to click on this query and we're going to change this from list to table and with table we can set different
• 06:30 - 07:00 Columns of data that we want to be able to see so let's go ahead and say status and then I'm going to capitalize the the column name here by saying as status so you can change what the column name is just by saying as and then putting in quotes what you want it to be called so let's go back out here so now as you can see we've got the files listed here and then we've got their status now we
• 07:00 - 07:30 already know that the status is holding tank so we don't actually really want to put status here the other uh metadata that we have available to us in these projects we have a deadline we have an area in which they belong uh we also have a tag but the tag is just project that's actually something else that we can do so from here we're we've been querying for the project from the folder that they live in we can actually also
• 07:30 - 08:00 say from Project from the tag so this could live anywhere inside of our vault I could put it at the top level I could put inside utilities whatever and it would find it no matter where it was I actually like working with tags better because of this reason I can have files in any any location I want inside of my Vault and as long as they have the right tag I can find them with my data view queries now one caveat with using tags with data view is that I as you can see I am now getting this project file
• 08:00 - 08:30 showing up this is the template that I used create new projects and it of course has a tag of project in it I don't want that showing up in every list so what I'm going to do is go back into my query and I can say minus and then a folder name and that will make it so it says get all the files that have the tag of project that don't live inside of the templates and we are going to need to put an and in here otherwise that won't
• 08:30 - 09:00 work so now we're just getting the projects that are actual projects not the template so now let's also go back in here and we're going to actually say deadline we're going to say as deadline now we can see we have some deadlines here now what's neat about this too now is we have these different Columns of information I can now sort them according to that that column so I can now say sort deadline so now that
• 09:00 - 09:30 doesn't change anything because it was already uh sorting by the date now if we wanted to change the order we could say descending and now November 9th is the one that's on top October 31st is the bottom so now this is newest to oldest rather than oldest to newest so let's go ahead and add our area in here as well so we're going to put a comma and we're going to say area as area and now we can see what area it
• 09:30 - 10:00 belongs to as well I actually want to switch those around and which order you put these columns in matters so if I want area to show up first I just put it first and now area is here deadline is last and what's nice is that I can click into an area and go into it from this table from this dashboard if I wanted to another really good thing that you can do with a dashboard like this is you can create a calendar like a little mini calendar so let's go over to are active
• 10:00 - 10:30 here I'm going to switch this to be a calendar and with a calendar we have to provide it a date that we want for this to to pull from so we're going to say deadline and we're going to do where the status is active and then this puts in a little calendar for us and you can see there's a little dot next to the 15th that is the deadline for one of our projects I can actually click on this and go to that project let's add a task of complete user test and then I can go
• 10:30 - 11:00 back over to my dashboard here and when I hover over this we'll be able to differentiate it so we can hover over this and see the project that has a deadline on the 15th we can see the contents of that project just by hovering over this and we can do that for the one here as well so this is kind of nice kind of gives you a quick glance of when projects are due unfortunately it doesn't give you the title of the project so you kind of have to just know what the project is based on the
• 11:00 - 11:30 contents but you can click on it and go to that project and see more information about it believe it or not that's the majority of what you need in order to get started with data view let's go back into this query real fast we look at this so you can do a table you can do a list you can group that list based on different metadata that you have in your notes that you're querying you can have this little mini calendar you can specify
• 11:30 - 12:00 where you want the data to come from if you didn't have a from it would just pull all the notes that you have in your Vault so you can do it by tag and you can do it by folder using this wear statement you can filter out the notes even further you can sort them by the different metadata as well now I have used data view for a long time and I still forget sometimes the Syntax for these queries it's a lot to remember so something that I've done to make things easier on myself I've actually created
• 12:00 - 12:30 some templates that I can use to insert these queries wherever I want them so I've got a query for my lists and I've got a query for table if I want to be able to insert these somewhere let's just go over to this sample project and I can go here and I can go to insert a template and I can say I want a data view table query and that puts that right in there for me and I change the column name to be status and we're going
• 12:30 - 13:00 to say status and then I'll go ahead and just do by a folder name and this is going to be projects and then I've got my query ready to go if you want to be able to access these templates they're available on my website you can find the link in the description below I'll also be including a template for calendar as well I'd love to know if there are any specific use cases that you have for data view that you're not quite sure how to build leave them in the comments below and I'll make sure to include them
• 13:00 - 13:30 in a future video in the meantime if you'd like to build your own task manager Vault you can watch this video right here