Skip to main content

Using a Dashboard

The Dashboard Viewer opens a Dashboard exactly as it was laid out in the Dashboard Editor. Widget positions and sizes are fixed — nothing here can be moved, resized, added or removed.

Choosing a Dashboard​

The Dashboard selector lists every Dashboard on the Robot, with a search field for installations that have many.

Each entry shows whether the Dashboard is protected:

  • Needs login — the Dashboard requires a RobFlow login and has not been unlocked in this session.
  • Authenticated — you are signed in and the Dashboard will open.

Unprotected Dashboards open for anyone who can reach the Robot. See Dashboard settings for how protection is configured.

If no Dashboard exists yet, the Viewer says so and offers to create one, which takes you to the Editor.

What you can do here​

What a Dashboard permits is decided entirely by the Widgets it carries. There is no separate permission system: if a Set Variable Widget is on the Dashboard, the operator can set that Variable; if it is not, they cannot.

In practice a production Dashboard usually offers:

  • The Robot's state and the message log, so the operator can see what is happening and why it stopped.
  • A Flow to run, and Run / Pause / Stop.
  • The handful of Variables that constitute a recipe or a changeover.

Anything that moves the Robot by hand — jogging, Free Motion, driving outputs — belongs on a separate, protected Dashboard.

Reading a stopped cell​

When the cell stops, the two Widgets that answer why are the Robot State panel and the Message Log. A Dashboard without a Message Log will tell an operator that something is wrong but not what, which usually ends in a call to whoever wrote the Flow.

What you cannot do​

  • Change the Dashboard layout — switch to the Dashboard Editor.
  • Reach the Flow, the Node graph or the Robot's configuration, unless a Widget on the Dashboard explicitly exposes it.
  • Leave kiosk mode, if the Dashboard was built with kiosk breakout prevented.

Full screen​

For a panel PC or a shop-floor terminal, open the Dashboard in kiosk mode so it fills the screen with no app bar around it.