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Analytics Studio

Analytics Studio is the Salesforce CRM Analytics workspace used inside your Cloudaware org to explore datasets and build analytics content. This guide summarizes the main component types you will encounter.

Home and Asset Types​

When you open Analytics Studio, the home page shows several lists with new, pinned, and recently viewed items. To browse everything, use Browse in the top‑left corner.

In Analytics Studio, core asset types include:

  • App
  • Dataset
  • Lens
  • Dashboard
  • Component/widget
  • Template

Apps and Folders​

  • Apps are specialized, dynamic folders that group related dashboards, lenses, and datasets for a team or use case.
  • Folders provide an additional way to organize and share content, with permissions controlling who can view or edit items.

By default, each user has:

  • A Private App – visible only to that user (even admins cannot access it).
  • A Shared App – visible across the org.

Cloudaware typically creates dedicated apps such as CMDB, Cost Management, and Security. Dashboards and their underlying datasets should be saved into the corresponding app so that navigation stays intuitive for users.

Sharing and Access Levels​

To share an app:

  1. In Analytics Studio, locate the app.
  2. Use the dropdown menu on the app tile and choose Share.
  3. Grant access to Users, Groups, or Roles as needed.

Common access levels are:

  • Viewer – can open and use dashboards and lenses.
  • Editor – can modify dashboards, lenses, and (where allowed) datasets in the app.
  • Manager – can manage sharing and app‑level settings.
tip

As a best practice, ensure that datasets and the dashboards/lenses built on top of them have compatible access and are stored in the same app.

Datasets​

  • Curated, analytics‑ready tables that store data for analysis (for example, usage events, adoption metrics, cost slices).
  • Typically loaded and refreshed via Data Manager, dataflows, or recipes.
  • Serve as the source for lenses, dashboards, and exports.

See also: About Datasets

Lenses​

  • Saved explorations of a dataset: a particular combination of measures, dimensions, filters, and visualizations.
  • Often used as building blocks for dashboards or as reusable “analysis views” for specific questions.
  • Can be opened to pivot, filter, and change chart types without modifying the underlying dataset.

See also: Create a Lens

Dashboards​

  • Interactive canvases that combine multiple widgets (charts, metrics, tables, filters, text) backed by one or more datasets.
  • Used for executive, operational, or product‑analytics views (for example, adoption overview, SLA compliance, service recovery KPIs).
  • Support filters, selectors, and actions (for example, drill‑through to records or external links).
  • Can be created on demand for specific customer needs, either by Cloudaware or by customer power users familiar with CRM Analytics.

See also: Build CRM Analytics Dashboards

Components/Widgets​

In Salesforce UI and documentation, these widgets are often referred to as components.

  • Individual visual or functional elements on a dashboard, such as:
    • Charts (bars, lines, pies, heatmaps, etc.).
    • Metric tiles (single‑value KPIs with trend indicators).
    • Tables and pivot tables.
    • Filter controls (date pickers, selectors, toggles).
    • Static elements (text, images, dividers).
  • Each widget is configured against a dataset (or combination) and responds to dashboard‑level filters.

See also: Dashboard Components Best Practices and Considerations

Templates​

  • Pre‑built, customizable blueprints for creating analytics apps, dashboards, and datasets.
  • Provide starting layouts and bindings for common CRM use cases.
  • When creating a new app or dashboard, CRM Analytics may offer default templates; in Cloudaware projects, teams often start from Blank App or Blank Dashboard instead and build opinionated content from scratch.

See also: Create and Manage CRM Analytics Templates in Analytics Studio

How This Maps to Cloudaware​

In Cloudaware:

  • Advanced Analytics datasets are built from CMDB, security, compliance, and cost data.
  • Lenses are used to prototype and validate metrics and KPIs.
  • Dashboards assemble those KPIs into views for different personas (executives, SRE, FinOps, security, product owners).

For schema-level details of the underlying datasets, review the data model guides.

If you are new to CRM Analytics dashboards, refer to Salesforce documentation on CRM Analytics and Trailhead for guidance, for example: