What this means
Included business data tells Analytics which businesses should feed the widgets on a dashboard. This is separate from access control. Access answers who can open the dashboard. Included business data answers whose jobs, invoices, payments, stock, and customer activity are counted inside it.
This matters most when you run more than one workshop or branch. If the wrong businesses are included, the dashboard may still look correct at first glance while showing incomplete or blended numbers.
Before You Start
Decide whether this dashboard is for one business, a branch comparison, or a combined owner view.
Use a title that names the businesses involved if the dashboard is not single site.
Remember that your own dashboard list may include dashboards you own even when another business is currently selected.
Set included business data
Open the dashboard and choose Included business data.
Select one or more businesses whose data should power the widgets.
Save the change and re-check the dashboard numbers before sharing the view with anyone else.
If you build a combined dashboard, say that clearly in the dashboard title and description.
How access and included business data work together
Access level
This controls who can open the dashboard at all. Use Private, Organization, or Roles depending on the audience.
Included business data
This controls which businesses supply the dashboard data. A shared dashboard can still show only one business, or it can combine several.
Owner visibility
The owner always sees dashboards they own in search, favourites, and when opening a link, even if current business selection would hide them for other people.
Best Practices
Use separate dashboards for branch managers if each location should monitor only its own workshop.
Create one clearly named combined dashboard for owner or leadership review rather than many almost identical copies.
Re-check included businesses after duplicating a dashboard for a different branch or region.
Common setup mistakes
Assuming current business selection automatically rewrites the dashboard included data. It does not.
Sharing a combined dashboard without making it obvious that the numbers span more than one business.
Using a single dashboard for all branches when local managers really need branch-specific views.
Troubleshooting
If numbers look too low, check whether one of the expected businesses was not included.
If a colleague cannot see the dashboard, check access level and their selected business or role, not just included business data.
If you own the dashboard and others do not see it, that can be expected behaviour. Owners always retain visibility of their own dashboards.