Google Analytics New Custom Dashboard

If you’ve ever jumped between five different GA4 reports just to check the numbers that actually matter to your business, you’ll like this one.

Google Analytics now has a custom dashboard feature. You can drag and drop the exact metrics and charts you care about onto a single page, save it, and check it whenever you like.

It’s a genuinely useful addition, so let’s break down what it does, how to set one up, and where it still falls short.

Why the GA4 Custom Dashboard matters

Before this, if you wanted a “quick glance” view of your business, you either built reports manually every time or exported data into a spreadsheet. Neither is fun.

You’ll be able to bring in:

• Metrics: How many? (e.g. Active users, Sessions etc).
• Dimensions: What to measure (e.g. channel groups)

Now you get:

One consolidated view: Your key metrics: conversions, revenue, sessions, whatever matters to you, on a single page. No more clicking between five reports to get the full picture.

Full control over layout: It’s a grid-based canvas, so you decide what goes where and how big each card is.

Drag-and-drop simplicity: You don’t need to be a GA4 power user to build one. Drag a chart type onto the canvas, then drag your dimensions and metrics onto it.

Direct publishing: Once you’re happy with it, you can save the dashboard to your Property. Then add it to your Library. Or drag it into your main menu for easy viewing.

What you can build with the GA4 Custom Dashboard

The dashboard supports six visualisation types, each suited to a different job:

Chart type	Best used for
Score cards	High-level KPIs, especially with a percentage change when you’re comparing date ranges. The Concept picker lets users toggle different metrics, but it’s clunky, so it’s best to switch it off.
Funnel charts	Monitoring conversion steps and spotting where people drop off.
Table charts	Detailed reports with shaded bar graphs and pagination.
Line charts	Tracking metrics over time (daily, weekly or monthly).
Bar charts	Comparing dimensions side by side.
Donut charts	Showing how parts contribute to a whole. Great for viewing channel group %.

Mix and match these depending on what story you’re trying to tell. A quick executive summary might just need a row of key performance indicator (KPI) scorecards. A deeper marketing review might lean more on tables and funnels.

Who can create a dashboard?

You’ll need an Editor or Administrator role to create or publish a dashboard. If you’re on a lower access level and someone with the right permissions publishes a dashboard, you’ll be able to view it.

This matters if you’re managing a team. You might want your analyst or agency to build and publish the dashboard, then leave it visible so the rest of the team can check it without needing full editor access.

How to Create and Edit a Dashboard

Here’s the process, step by step:

1. Sign in to Google Analytics.
2. From the left menu, select Reports.
3. To build a new one, click + Create at the top of the Reports left navigation, then choose Dashboard.
4. To edit an existing published dashboard instead, select it from the left navigation and click the Edit (pencil) icon.
5. Drag and drop your visualisation types: scorecards, tables, charts, whatever you need, onto the canvas.
6. Drag your dimensions and metrics onto each chart to populate it with the data you actually want to see.
7. Use the right-hand panel to customise each visualisation further.
8. Click Save to lock in your changes.
9. Tick Publish to Collection if you want the report to be saved in your Library folder of choice or your main GA4 menu.

How to View a Dashboard if you have Viewer access

If someone on your team has already built and published a dashboard, you don’t need special permissions to view it. Just:

1. Go to Google Analytics.
2. Click Reports from the left menu.
3. Select the published dashboard from the navigation.

Simple as that.

The Limitations You Should Know About

Whilst exciting, the new custom dashboards have a few fallbacks, including:

• Dimensions and metrics: Not all are available yet; more will likely be added as this feature rolls out. But things like Exits and Page referrer are available, even though this is not the case for standard reports.
• Card limits: Free Google Analytics users are capped at 15 cards per dashboard, but in my testing I could only add up to 10. Google 360 Enterprise (Paid) properties get more room, up to 30 cards.
• Sharing is all-or-nothing: Every published dashboard is shared with the whole property. You can’t currently lock a dashboard down to specific users or roles.
• Customisation: You can’t add custom branding or descriptive notes to explain cards or reporting.
• Data sampling: Similar to Explore, you’ll find data is sampled for users with large event and traffic data.
• A few features are missing: API support, segments, and card-level comparisons aren’t supported yet. If your reporting relies heavily on segments, you’ll still need to jump into the standard reports for that.

None of these are dealbreakers, but they’re good to keep in mind when you’re deciding what belongs on your dashboard versus what still needs a dedicated report.

What attribution does the new custom dashboard use?

The tool uses Paid & Organic Last Click, not the data-driven model used by Explore and Advertising reports. This is the same as the Standard Reports.

However, when testing the tool with custom channel groups, we saw some data discrepancies, suggesting bugs.

Can I switch from Google Data Studio (Google Looker)?

Not anytime soon. Google Data Studio offers far more features and customisations, especially if you want to filter or compare data at the individual metric or card level. It’s also better when you want to combine data sources outside of Google Analytics.

A Final Pro Tip

Don’t try to cram everything onto one dashboard just because you can fit 15 (or 30) cards. But in testing, I found this was 10, which may also be a bug.

The best dashboards answer a specific question at a glance: “Is the business tracking well this month?” or “Where’s our traffic actually converting?” , rather than trying to be a home for every metric.

Start with your must-know numbers. You can always build a second dashboard for a different audience or purpose (e.g., one for marketing, one for the leadership team, or one for different channels).

Need a hand setting up a dashboard that actually shows the numbers that matter to your business?

Get in touch, and we’ll help you build a GA4 dashboard that gives you the full picture at a glance, every time you log in.