===== 📊 Squirrel Dashboard Overview =====

The [[https://www.smikar.com/squirrel/|Squirrel]] Dashboard provides administrators with a real-time, high-level overview of the platform’s performance, system activity, and archiving impact. It’s designed to give actionable insights at a glance — helping you monitor data movement, track storage savings, and ensure Squirrel is running efficiently.

----

| Once you have logged in with your Admin account, you’ll be presented with the main dashboard screen. | {{:software:squirrel:squirrel_dashboard.png?400 }} |

----

==== 🔍 What the Dashboard Shows You ====

Each widget is designed to display up-to-date metrics for archiving and restoring data across your SharePoint environment.

**Key Metrics Displayed on the Dashboard:**

- **📦 Total Archived Data:**  
  Displays the total volume of archived data (in terabytes). Useful for tracking the cumulative impact of your archiving policies.

- **📅 Archived Data – Today / This Month / This Year:**  
  Shows how much data has been archived over different time frames, helping you measure short- and long-term activity.

- **📁 Total Archive Transactions:**  
  The number of files or items that have been successfully archived across all sites.

- **📈 Archive Transactions – Today / This Month / This Year:**  
  Breakdowns of archiving activity by day, month, and year.

- **🔄 Total Restore Transactions:**  
  Displays the number of items restored from archive back into SharePoint.

- **📥 Restore Transactions – Today / This Month / This Year:**  
  Tracks how often users or admins restore files across your environment.

- **💰 Total Savings:**  
  A real-time estimate of the storage cost savings achieved by archiving files to Azure Blob Storage instead of retaining them in SharePoint.

- **📊 Percent Archived:**  
  Indicates what percentage of your SharePoint storage has been archived so far. This is a key metric to help you measure storage optimization.

- **📰 Latest News:**  
  Displays the most recent Squirrel announcements, updates, and new feature releases — keeping admins informed about what's new in the platform.

----

==== 🧱 Dashboard Widgets Explained ====

Each metric appears in a **widget-style tile** designed for clarity and speed. These widgets are updated daily or in real-time (depending on the data type) and provide a live snapshot of the health and performance of your Squirrel environment.

You can use the dashboard to:

- Confirm if scheduled archiving is occurring as expected
- Quickly identify spikes in restore activity
- Measure storage reclaimed over time
- Track cost savings for reporting to stakeholders
- Stay updated on the latest platform improvements

----

If you're unsure about a specific widget or need help interpreting your dashboard data, reach out to [support@smikar.com](mailto:support@smikar.com) for assistance.