---
title: How to read your store dashboard
url: https://tideswell.xyz/docs/store/read-your-dashboard
description: Revenue, orders and average order value for the period you pick, each compared against the period immediately before it.
---

> Documentation index: fetch https://tideswell.xyz/llms.txt to discover every page before exploring further.

# How to read your store dashboard



**Store › Analytics** is the trading dashboard. Every card on it is measured over one period
that you choose, and compared against the equal-length period immediately before.

This page covers reading it. For what Store is, start at <Ref to="store" />.

## Before you start [#before-you-start]

Store has to be switched on for your workspace, and you need view access to the store
dashboards, which usually starts at team lead.

If the whole section is missing rather than locked, the module is off. That is an admin
setting in <Ref to="workspace-admin/modules" />.

## What are the three headline numbers? [#what-are-the-three-headline-numbers]

**Revenue**, **order count** and **average order value**, each for the period you picked.

Under each one is an arrow and a percentage: the change against the **prior period**, which
is the equal-length stretch immediately before your window. Pick Last 30 days and the
comparison is the 30 days before that.

That comparison is why the date picker matters more than it looks. Choosing a period is
choosing what you are measuring against. See <Ref to="store/change-the-date-range" />.

## Which number ignores the date picker? [#which-number-ignores-the-date-picker]

**Waiting to ship**. It counts paid orders that are unfulfilled or only partly fulfilled, and
it is always the position right now.

That is deliberate. A backlog is a thing you have today, not a thing you had last month, so
scoping it to a date range would make it meaningless.

For working through the backlog itself, see <Ref to="store/orders-and-fulfilment" />.

## What do the two rings show? [#what-do-the-two-rings-show]

**Revenue by sales channel** splits your revenue by where the order came from: the online
store, point of sale, marketplaces, and an **Other** bucket. Every order belongs to exactly
one channel, so the ring adds up to your revenue.

**Revenue by category** splits it by Shopify's product type. The top eight are shown and
everything else folds into **Other**.

Both carry an order count as well as a value, which is how you tell a channel with a few big
orders from one with many small ones.

## What are the two trend charts? [#what-are-the-two-trend-charts]

A **revenue trend** across the chosen period, and an **average order value trend** with the
swing against the previous period shown as a chip beside it.

The average order value trend is the more interesting of the two, and the one people skip.
Revenue rising while average order value falls means you are working harder for the same
money, which is a different problem from a quiet week.

## What does "Updated 4 minutes ago" mean? [#what-does-updated-4-minutes-ago-mean]

That the page was served from a recent snapshot rather than computed from scratch, which is
why it opened instantly.

**Refresh** forces fresh numbers. Use it when you have just made a change in Shopify and want
to see it, and otherwise leave it alone: the snapshot rebuilds itself every few minutes.

A page computed live has no stamp, because there is nothing for it to be updated against.

## Why does a card say it is based on recent orders only? [#why-does-a-card-say-it-is-based-on-recent-orders-only]

Because reading your whole order history has a ceiling, and on a busy store the scan reaches
it.

Rather than quietly under-reporting, the card tells you: the figures came from the most
recent orders and older history was not scanned. Read that line as a scope note on the
number above it.

It matters most on long windows. A Last 365 days figure carrying that note is not a year of
data, and narrowing the range often removes the note entirely.

## Why is a margin percentage blank? [#why-is-a-margin-percentage-blank]

Because no cost was recorded in Shopify for the products that sold. Gross margin is revenue
minus unit cost, so without a cost there is nothing to compute.

A blank is Tideswell declining to guess rather than a fault. Adding costs in Shopify fills
them in.

## What if I want an answer rather than a chart? [#what-if-i-want-an-answer-rather-than-a-chart]

Ask for one. The analyst reads these same figures plus your stock, suppliers and marketing,
and answers in sentences.

"How did we do yesterday and what moved" is one click on the home page. See
<Ref to="analyst" />.