When a metric suddenly spikes or drops, a conversion rate falls, bounce rate shoots up, or sessions unexpectedly double, you need to understand what happened, when it happened, and which users were affected.
Spotting the anomaly is one thing. Understanding the cause is what leads to action. Dashboard widgets let you zoom directly into the moment or behavior that caught your attention, so you can move from observation to investigation without leaving the dashboard.
What you're analyzing and why it is matters
When a metric moves in an unexpected direction, the instinct is often to jump to conclusions, a bug, a campaign, a technical issue. But before drawing conclusions, it helps to narrow down the context: when exactly did it happen, and was it affecting all users or just a specific group?
Dashboard widgets give you different ways to zoom in directly from the data you're already looking at, no need to rebuild filters from scratch or switch tools.
How to investigate a performance spike or drop
Zoom into a specific moment on a line chart.
When you spot an unusual movement on a line chart, click directly into it to focus your entire dashboard on that time window.
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Hover over any point on the line chart to see the metric details for that moment.
- Click the point you want to investigate.
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Click Zoom to time.
All widgets on your dashboard will update to show data for that time window only, so you can see what else was happening across your metrics at the same moment.
To return to your original view, clear the time period from the Analysis context bar at the top of the dashboard.
Depending on the date range selected, you can view data at different levels of detail:
- Hourly: available when 1–7 days are selected
- Daily / Weekly: available for selections over 7 days
- Monthly: available for selections over 30 days
The most recent data point on the line chart reflects the last full hour minus 30 minutes, based on your time zone. For example, if it's 12:58, the latest data point shown will be 12:00. When comparing data, make sure both sets are using the same time zone setting.
Use your data table widget to see which segment was affected
If you have a table widget showing breakdowns by country, city, or device, you can apply any row directly as a segment to see how that specific group is reflected across all your other widgets.
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Click the ... icon next to any row in the table.
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Click Apply as segment, or Apply as device if the row represents a device type.
- All widgets refresh to show data for that specific value.
Note
Apply as segment is available for country, city, and device groupings only.