Building static and interactive dashboards

Introduction to building dashboards in R
Author
Affiliation

Stephanie Hicks

Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins

Published

December 2, 2025

Pre-lecture activities

Tip

In advance of class, please install three additional packages:

  • shiny - this provides functionality to create interactive dashboard elements

You can do this by calling

install.packages(c("shiny"))

In addition, please read through

  1. Information about creating quarto dashboards: https://quarto.org/docs/dashboards/
  2. Examples of quarto dashboards: https://quarto.org/docs/gallery/#dashboards

Lecture

Learning objectives

NoteLearning objectives

At the end of this lesson you will:

  • Know how to create a static quarto dashboard to display data analysis elements
  • Add interactive elements to your dashboard using tools from the shiny package
  • Have resources to assist you in developing your own more complex dashboard to clearly present data and interactive elements

Slides

Deploying a dashboard

Here are some helpful pointers for getting a free Shinyapps.io account and then publishing your dashboard to the web:

TipDeploying a Shiny app in RStudio
  1. Sign up for a free account on http://www.shinyapps.io/
  2. Install the rsconnect package: install.packages("rsconnect")
  3. Check out these instructions to deploy on ShinyApps.io (https://quarto.org/docs/interactive/shiny/running.html#shinyapps)
  4. If you want to delete the app (unpublish it), you need to do this from within your shinyapps.io account. Go to http://www.shinyapps.io/ and log in to your account. Click on applications to manage your applications. You must first archive your app before you can delete it.

Class activity

For the rest of the time in class, you and your team will work on the final project. Stephanie will walk around to answer questions.

Post-lecture

Tip

Here are a list of resources on Shiny: