Adding Charts, Sliders, and Checkboxes

Drop charts, value tiles and controls onto a simulation diagram to turn it into an interactive dashboard your stakeholders can explore.

A simulation diagram isn't just a structural view — it's a dashboard. You can drop charts, value tiles and controls directly onto the canvas alongside your agents, and the result is something you can hand to a stakeholder and let them play with.

Add a chart

In the Toolbox, under Charts, drag a Line Chart onto the simulation diagram.
Move it like any other element, and drag its corner to resize it. The chart redraws to fit.

In the Properties panel:

Data Series: click + Add Series and pick an agent and a property. Each series can also have its own display name, colour and Parameter set, so one chart can compare a variant with the baseline.
X-Axis Label / Y-Axis Label: optional axis titles.
Show per: on a twin with a calendar, show a weekly or daily series per month, quarter or year. Combine as sets how each period's steps become one value (see Putting a Twin on a Calendar).
Chart type: Line, Bar or Table, independent of Show per. Default draws a line per step and bars per period. Table lists the values, one row per step or period and one column per series.
During a run: matters only for playable dashboards (see Playing Through a Simulation Step by Step).

Hover over a line to read the exact value at that timestep. Viewers can switch any chart to a table and back with Show as table / Show as chart in its title row, also on a published site. This never changes the model. To use a chart elsewhere, Export chart saves it as SVG or PNG, and Copy as Image puts it on your clipboard.

Charts read values from the same place the time series grid does: manual entries and computed formulas all show up together.

Add a value tile

A Value tile (Toolbox → Controls) shows a single number, such as total cost or current inventory, in large type.

Reads: which timestep it shows. Latest result for the current state; on a twin with a calendar, Now (live) follows today's date.
Unit: a label shown next to the number.
Decimals: round the number and its change to a fixed number of decimal places. Auto shows whole numbers as they are and others with up to four decimals.
Show per / Combine as: the same roll-up as charts.
Conditional colour: colour the tile when its value crosses a limit. Click Add rule, choose a comparison, a Limit and a colour. Rules are checked top to bottom, and the first that matches colours the tile. In the Beer Game, Backorder turns red above 500.

Add a slider

Sliders let users drive a numeric baseline value on one or more agents directly from the diagram. As they move the slider, the time series updates and any formulas depending on it recompute.

Under Controls in the Toolbox, drag a Slider onto the diagram.
In the Properties panel, set Min, Max and Step, then add the agent and property it drives under Controls. One target controls one agent; several let one slider drive a whole group.
Optional: Input style switches between Slider and Number field, and Parameter set decides which set the slider writes into.

This is how you turn a live twin into an interactive dashboard. The Limits to Growth example in the intro model uses a slider to control the rate of change — drag it and watch the system reach its carrying capacity sooner or later.

Add a checkbox

Checkboxes work like sliders but for boolean properties. Useful for toggling features, enabling/disabling whole subsystems, or switching between modes.

Drag a Checkbox from the Toolbox onto the diagram
In the Properties panel, pick the (agent, property) targets the checkbox drives

When the checkbox has multiple targets and they disagree, it renders as indeterminate; clicking sets all of them at once.

More controls

Option: a drop-down for properties with a fixed list of choices.
Parameter set: lets viewers switch the whole dashboard between parameter sets, such as Baseline and High demand. Available sets limits which ones it offers.
Time range: on a twin with a calendar, lets viewers switch between This year, Last 12 months and so on.
Forecast from: the time slider that marks where history ends and the forecast begins (see Mixing Live Data and Forecasts with the Time Slider).
Text: a free text box for explanations next to the charts.
Round control: turns the dashboard into a step-by-step game (see Playing Through a Simulation Step by Step).

Build up over time

Start with one chart showing one property. Add more series as you want to compare. Drop a slider when a stakeholder asks "what if this number changes?". Add a checkbox when there's a clear binary in the conversation.

The grid, the simulation engine, the dashboard — they're all looking at the same underlying twin. Anything you change with a slider on the canvas shows up immediately in the time series grid and in any formula that reads that property. The dashboard is just another way to see and edit your computational knowledge graph.

Next steps

Writing Property Formulas — give the slider something to feed into
Live Twins: A First Look — refresher on how scenarios and twins fit together
Putting a Twin on a Calendar — read charts per month, quarter or year
Playing Through a Simulation Step by Step — turn a dashboard into a game