Prerequisites to building an inventory dashboard

You need to copy the free inventory management template by Softr to get started. You can choose any database from available options across Google Sheets, Airtable, HubSpot, Smartsuite, SQL and more. The databases already have sample data, but you can choose to add your own to help visualize better while designing the app.

Step 1: Create a new page on the inventory management template app

Go to the ‘Pages’ option on the left panel and click on ‘Add New Page’. Name your page as desired and click on ‘Save.’

Step 2: Add a summary block for the inventory snapshot

Let’s start by adding a summary block available on Softr’s free plan. Go to the ‘Dynamic’ section on your right panel and scroll down to the ‘Summary Cards’ option.

Learn more about this block in this YouTube walkthrough — Softr’s summary block

Now, choose your data source and connect it to the relevant table you wish to summarize.

Let’s say, we want to showcase a summary of product inventory.

Choose the Table as ‘Product Inventory’ and select the ready-made view of ‘Inventory Overview’ created by the template.

Then, go to the ‘Features’ section to edit the summary card values. In our example, we will showcase the total units sold for each product. Select ‘Product Name’ from the ‘Label’ dropdown and select ‘Units Sold’ from the ‘Value’ dropdown. You can mix and match with other dropdown options to create your summary pattern.

You can also further customize the styling and visibility of the summary block. Here’s what the inventory summary will look like:

Step 3: Create beautiful and engaging custom charts

“Charts’ block is available under Softr’s paid plan — but you can try it for free with Softr’s 30-day free trial.

Learn more about this block here — Softr’s ‘Chart’ blocks

As an example, let’s create a bar chart to analyze the revenue generated by each product in the inventory.

Select the source, base, table, and view from the ‘Source’ section. As per the template, you can choose ‘Purchase Orders’ as the table and ‘All Orders to Manufacturer’ as the view for our example.

Then, head to the ‘Features’ section and name the chart — ‘Revenue From Products’. In our example, we have selected ‘Bar’ as the type of chart. You can experiment by selecting any other type from the dropdown menu.

Now, let’s set up the bar chart — select the aggregate function as ‘Sum’ which will help us showcase the total price of product inventory for each product.

Then, in the grouping, select ‘Name’ which will show the product names on the X-axis. You can further sort the product names as required.

Now preview the prepared bar chart, here’s what it will look like:

You can play around with the chart feature options to edit labels, change styles, legend orientation, and more to create as many charts as your business requires.

Step 4: Add custom KPIs to the inventory dashboard

This step will show you how to create custom KPIs using Airtable and showcase the results on Softr’s inventory dashboard.

As an example, let’s showcase the Sell-Through Rate — the ratio of Units Sold / Units Received.

For this, we add the formula on Airtable (or your choice of database). Go to the Airtable base template and select the ‘Purchase Orders’ table. Select the ‘All orders to manufacturers’ view and add another column to list the ‘Units Sold’.

Then, create another column to calculate the Sell-Through Rate. Choose the field type as ‘Formula’ and add the ratio into the formula writing space provided as shown here:

You can also format it as a percentage for better interpretation by selecting the ‘Percent’ option in the formatting section.

Here’s what the result will look like:

Go to the Softr’s editor and select the chart type as ‘Pie’ to showcase the product vs STR chart. Choose ‘Purchase Orders’ as the table and ‘All Order To Manufacturer’ as the view.

Now, head to the ‘Features’ section to edit the pie chart. Name the title of the chart as ‘Sell-Through Rate’. Then, under the metrics section, choose ‘Sum’ and the field ‘Sell-Through Rate’ that we have prepared on Airtable.

Now, head to the ‘Groupings’ section and select ‘Product Name’. You can further edit the pie chart’s style, colors, labels, and design as desired.

Here’s what the resulting pie chart looks like on preview:

You can explore more charts, prepare a Kanban board, and showcase more summaries to further customize your inventory dashboard. If you need help, feel free to contact Softr’s support team or Hire a Softr Expert to help you build complex functionalities.

1. Organizing data is key to designing error-free dashboards

When your inventory data is accurately structured, their relationships defined, and up-to-date, you solve half of your problems.

Focus on using consistent formats for data entries. For example, ensure product names, SKU codes, and categories follow a standardized naming convention. For detailed tracking, create subcategories within major categories. For example, within the ‘beauty’ category, you could have subcategories like ‘men's skincare’, ‘women's skincare’, etc.

A common error while preparing dashboards on Softr is data mismatch. To fix this and many other Airtable errors — explore our Airtable error troubleshooting guide.

2. Ensure relevant user accessibility

You may not want to showcase the dashboard data and analysis to everyone. Use Softr’s permission settings to control who can view, edit, or manage different parts of the dashboard. (Softr’s permissions are a huge advantage to just using Airtable and its permissions and pricing). For example, managers might have full access, while inventory staff may only update stock levels.

You can set up broad-level accessibility by creating user groups in the ‘Users’ section on the left panel of the editor. For these groups, you can further apply data restrictions:

You can explore the ‘Visibility’ tabs on your blocks that allow you to set up user permissions and device visibility for each designed block.

3. Integrate with other tools

Softr provides 35+ native integrations across analytics, chat tools, forms, compliance, and more that can enhance your inventory dashboard’s capabilities.

You can access them under the ‘Settings’ section of the left panel. Select ‘Integrations’ and choose the desired one from the available options. You can also request integration from the Softr team.

4. Implement alerts and notifications

You can make your inventory management from reactive to proactive — and for this, enabling alerts and notifications plays a key role.

Set up signup/login email notifications on your Softr app by following the instructions here — User Email Notifications. You can also explore custom code and integrations with third-party notification providers.

The Softr team is coming up with push notifications as a feature soon, so stay tuned!

5. Explore conditional filters for more data control

Softr allows you to apply conditional filters on your data source. You can apply logic without using any formulas to create more complex visualizations. Softr provides a simple interface to apply conditions on your database.

Learn more about – the conditional filters feature by Softr.