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Astrato Actions | Tips and tricks for data-driven user experiences

Get the most out of Astrato Actions

Piers Batchelor avatar
Written by Piers Batchelor
Updated over 2 weeks ago

Actions are extremely powerful, enabling all sorts of use cases, from writeback, to working with Snowpark, even generating specific narratives form your data. Actions create and extend operational use cases such as data cleansing, commenting and even working with other products.

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Filters: Always one selected value

When building dashboards, ensuring that there’s always a selected value in a filter can be crucial for guiding users through data. This feature guarantees that there is always one option selected, preventing users from accidentally deselecting all values, which could result in empty or confusing visuals.

Use Case: Imagine a scenario where users need to compare energy prices across regions. If a user accidentally deselects all filters, the dashboard could display incorrect or incomplete data.

By enforcing Always One Selected Value, you ensure that a region is always chosen, providing a consistent view and preventing data gaps.

This feature helps users focus on a specific data point without leaving the filter empty, ensuring data integrity and improving the decision-making process.


Designing for Mobile

Astrato lets you design for mobile users - unlike other tools who redesign your dashboard for mobile for you, outside of your control.

Mobile users deserve a true mobile analytics experience.

Creating the Mobile Design

To speed up the process, we recommend to clone your full-screen sheet in the workbook editor.

In the new sheet, we recommend to Lock aspect ratio of your sheet. This ensures that a mobile view is retained on the sheet and enables you to design on a mobile sized canvas.

Choose a paper size or set the aspect ratio to 9:19.5 , which is the typical aspect ratio of the newest mobile devices in the 2020s (excluding flip/fold devices).

Once complete, you're ready to make your layout mobile friendly.

💡 Put your main content at the top of the sheet.

Locking the aspect ratio of a worksheet in Astrato

Automatically show the right content based on their device

Once you have completed your design, open up Astrato's actions.

In Actions, add the blocks shown below (use our search to find blocks faster).

These blocks perform the following actions:

  • If the device window is portrait (taller than wider), then go to Mobile Overview.

  • Otherwise, go to Overview.

The end Result

Try it yourself - just change the window size closer to mobile and hit refresh.

ℹ️ Remember you can show and hide sheets in Astrato, with one workbook to serve all types of users.


Personalized Default View

Astrato lets you have a default view for each user. This can be done in two easy action blocks:

  1. Create default view
    User clicks on button object to set their default bookmark.

  2. Set default view on open, based on user name

    The default bookmark they created is available only to them, and selected on workbook open.


Lock filters, based on a user’s profile

This procedure ensures users are directed to data they are encouraged to view, based on their name and role. Please note that this is not an alternative to security best practice, we recommend to utilize native data warehouse role-based access control (RBAC).

🔄 How it works:

  1. Table Setup
    The User Access table defines (as an example):

    • User (First Name)

    • Location (e.g. London)

    • Role (e.g. Team, Manager)

  2. Procedure: Lock down the data to a user’s scope

    • First, we filter User Access to the current user’s name.

    • Then we get their assigned location, based on that match.

    • If the user’s Role is “Team”, an extra filter is applied: it locks down the Sales Country field to only show United Kingdom.

  3. Triggering the Procedure

    • This runs automatically before the workbook opens.

    • It also runs any time a filter marked "Applied" is changed.

📌 Notes for Admins

  • ✅ This method works well for mirroring (not replacing) a traditional access control experience, which is more customisable, for dynamic user experiences; such as locking and unlocking data, for use with changing the scope of analysis.

  • 🔐 Always manage user roles and data scopes in your data warehouse, not inline.

  • 📚 See Enterprise Authentication guide for best practices on central security.


✨👤 Personalized AI Insights & Recommendations

With Astrato's AI Providers (OpenAI, Axure OpenAI, Snowflake Cortex etc) and prompt building blocks, you can now deliver tailored insights and actionable recommendations directly inside dashboards — no code required.

📘 Use Case 1: Dashboard Analysis with Context-Aware Summary

What it does:

  • Summarizes dashboard content with AI

  • Injects user metadata like:

    • First name

    • Primary location

    • Primary role

    • User groups

  • The AI understands “who” is asking, and frames insights more meaningfully.

Example Output:

“Hi Emma, based in London in your role as Regional Manager, here’s what stands out in the Sales Forecast dashboard...”

What it does:

  • Creates a system prompt defining user attributes

  • Lets the user submit a specific prompt like:

    “Show me actions to improve conversion in EMEA”

  • Together, the LLM receives:

    “The user is called James, based in Berlin, role = Marketing Manager... Provide recommended actions to the user.”

🔧 Creative Idea:

Use this for automated suggestions, training guidance, or performance improvement tips — all filtered by user identity. Ideal for:

  • Internal sales reps

  • Ops leads

  • Support dashboards

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