Watch this video for a 30 second intro to Arena.
QuickSight Arena provides you with an embedded instance of QuickSight right within the QuickSight Community.
Using Arena, you can:
- Explore creating QuickSight data visualization dashboards for free
- Publish dashboards to the Community Gallery to showcase your skills
- Include dashboards depicting your use case while posting questions in the Community Q&A
- Clone underlying analysis views of published dashboards in order to learn / try answering questions
- Include dashboards, with working solutions, while responding to questions
In this article, we will cover all aspects on interacting with Arena. Please be sure to scroll down and read all the way to the end.
Signing in - To start using Arena, you can click Arena > Console from top navbar. You will be taken through a quick tour, provided with information regarding restrictions, terms and conditions and will be dropped into Arena once you agree to the terms and conditions. Arena automatically links to your Community profile and your content persists across sessions.
Uploading a File - You can upload your own sample data into Arena. Keep in mind that you are uploading data into a public forum. So, only use data that doesn’t contain any sensitive information, that you have full rights to use, and that you can share in its entirety.
Arena supports only CSV files up to 1GB in size, and the upload needs to be done via Arena’s interface. (See below.)
Publishing to the Gallery - Once you have a dashboard ready, take a screen shot to include in your Gallery post. Then enable public access from Arena’s share screen, and copy the dashboard link. Create a new topic in the Gallery, and follow the instructions provided there in order to format and submit.
Asking a Question - When you have questions that involve data and calculations, including a sample dashboard that shows the issue you are facing helps other Community members to help you. The process is similar to how you publish to the Gallery: Include the dashboard link along with your question. Be sure to explain the issue in as much detail as possible - the dashboard is meant as a supplement to your question and not as a replacement for the issue description.
Responding to a Question - Clicking an Arena link that is included in a question will open up the dashboard for you. Clicking the Copy icon therein creates a copy of the underlying analysis. Once you figure out a solution, publish the dashboard and include a link to your solution dashboard in your reply.
Porting content - If you want to bring in a dashboard from your own account, upload sample data that matches your current dashboard and create an empty analysis in Arena. Then, open the code editor, select the empty analysis and paste in your definition. Note that the data set identifier declaration section shouldn’t be edited; Instead, replace the identifier used in other sections. Likewise, you can use the code editor to export content out of Arena.
Deleting content - Please refrain from deleting dashboards (and their underlying datasets) once you share the dashboard link in a question, answer or Gallery post. If you disable public access to a dashboard, other viewers will get an error stating that the author has revoked access. Your datasets are used to drive your dashboard and all copies made out of it. So, be very careful while deleting content.
Using short cut keys - Memorizing the following short cut keys will help you easily switch between Arena and Community pages.
Cntl + Shft + A for Arena
Cntl + Shft + C for Community
In summary, Arena improves your learning experience within QuickSight Community and lets you showcase your talent to the world. We hope you will find Arena to be a helpful addition to the QuickSight Community, and you will utilize it to the fullest.
Regards,
Arun Santhosh
Principal QuickSight SA
Watch this video for a walkthrough from Arun!
