Glossary · Automation

Dashboard Auto-Refresh

Dashboard auto-refresh is the automatic re-running of a dashboard's underlying queries on a schedule, so the displayed metrics stay current without anyone manually reloading or rebuilding anything.

A dashboard is only as good as its last refresh. Static reports rot quietly–the chart still renders, the numbers are just three weeks old, and decisions get made on them anyway. Auto-refresh removes the human from the update loop: queries re-run hourly or daily, and what you see reflects what the database currently says. The why-it-matters is trust: a dashboard people believe is current gets used; one with an ambiguous "last updated" gets abandoned. The practical consideration is refresh frequency–often enough to be trustworthy, not so often that it loads down the database.

Fig — every answer ships with the tables, rows and SQL behind it.