Dashboards are visual information snapshots that are generated from the data in associated reports and are presented as graphical elements. These graphical elements are known as dashboard components, of which there are these five types: charts, gauges, tables, metrics, and Visualforce pages.

Dashboards can have up to 20 components, and you can control users' access to dashboards by storing them in folders with appropriate permissions, where folders can be public, hidden, or restricted to groups or roles.

Dashboards can be further configured to run with the concept of a running user, which means that the named user's security settings determine what data is to be displayed. Here, all dashboard viewers see data according to the security settings of the user who has been set as the running user irrespective of the dashboard viewer's own personal security settings.

A more flexible and dynamic approach, however, allows you to set the running user to be the logged-in user so that each...