If you’ve used the Klip Gallery, then you’ve experienced the power of pre-built metrics. With well over 300 metrics for more than 60 services (and growing weekly), you’ve got an on-demand menu of common metrics and KPIs such as revenue growth, online web traffic, social media performance, application and server uptime, and ecommerce performance.
The Klip Gallery, however, is designed to track the most common metrics. As you start to develop and design dashboards, you will want to start creating custom dashboards that report on the metrics and data points that are unique to your business. This is where Klipfolio really excels.
Custom dashboards really means custom data sets
Behind every great dashboard is a great data set. Klipfolio provides a robust set of tools to visualize your data any way you want, as well to manipulate your data in surprisingly sophisticated ways. But this only one part of the dashboarding equation: you also need to retrieve custom data sets.
Enter the Integration Gallery.
The newly released Integration Gallery represents an important step forward for allowing non-technical users to introduce themselves to the exciting world of APIs. APIs are a dashboarder’s best friend because they allow you to set up automated connections to services across the web. Not only that, but they also allow you to access data sets that aren’t always available via standard reporting interfaces.
How does the Integration Gallery work?
The Integration Gallery introduces two important steps into the data creation workflow. First, when building a custom Klip or creating a data source from the Library, you will be provided a list of services you can establish an integration with. This will make it a lot easier to find the service you want to integrate with.
Second, when you select a service, you will be provided a user-friendly interface that makes it easier to perform your API request. As you set up the integration, you will have ready-access to relevant documentation, which usually includes our documentation as well as that particular service’s documentation. Most importantly, you will be given a sample Query URL as a starting point.
What if I don’t see my service in the Integration Gallery?
If you can’t find a service in the Integration Gallery, you can still connect to services using one of our Core Connectors. Keep in mind that we’ve verified connections to over 400 services, and the gallery only lists the most popular connections.
The value of being more technical with your dashboard
If the term API has you running for the hills, then let me leave you with this: APIs aren’t nearly as scary as you might think. In fact, learning how to use APIs to build dashboards is one of the best ways to learn APIs. Why? Because you get a solid use-case that produces a valuable deliverable. The Integration Gallery provides the perfect stepping stone for those unfamiliar with APIs to start building custom dashboards.