Build an artifact that shows your data

Keep a live dashboard, model or calculator next to the data it runs on. An artifact is an HTML page that lives in Fieldwerk and reads the CSV, TSV and JSON files beside it, so the data stays as ordinary files your team can open and update. Upload a new version of a file and every open copy of the artifact updates itself: a weekly report becomes one CSV upload, not a rebuild.

The easiest way to build one is to ask your AI assistant. Once it's connected (see Connect Claude to Fieldwerk or Connect ChatGPT to Fieldwerk), it can write the page, upload the data and allow access for you.

Examples from simple to smart

Each example below comes with a prompt you can give your assistant to make something like it. The examples here keep their sample numbers inside the page so they show on this public site; yours can read the numbers from your own files instead, as the chart's prompt does with readers.csv and the rest of this page explains.

Simple. A decision summary with who decided, the dates and the next steps.

In Fieldwerk, make a memo with an artifact that sums up our decision to move client reporting to monthly: who decided, when it starts, when we review it, and the next steps with an owner and a date for each. Keep it to one clean card.

Beautiful. A chart of weekly readers, with the latest number up top, a note on what changed and a table view.

In Fieldwerk, add an artifact to my reporting notebook that charts weekly active readers from readers.csv for the last 12 weeks. Show the latest number and the change at the top, mark the week the weekly digest launched, show the value when I hover, and add a button to see it as a table.

Smart. A fee planner. Move the sliders and the total, the split and the weekly load update as you go.

In Fieldwerk, make a memo with a project fee planner: sliders for hours in discovery, design and delivery, the hourly rate, contingency and weeks to deliver. Show the total excluding GST, a bar that splits the fee by part, the hours per week and roughly what we'd invoice each month.

Where an artifact gets its data

• In a notebook, an artifact reads files in the same notebook.

• Inside a memo, an artifact reads files attached to that memo.

• An artifact loose in a collection, outside any notebook, can't read files. Move it into the notebook with its data.

It can't read anything else: not another notebook's files, not the internet, and not anyone's Fieldwerk account.

Build one with an AI assistant

1. Put your data files in a notebook (or attach them to a memo).

2. Ask your assistant for what you want to see, for example:

   Try this with your AI assistantCopy

   In Fieldwerk, build a dashboard in my sales notebook that reads sales.csv and targets.json and shows sales against target by region.

   Open in ClaudeOpen in ChatGPT

3. The assistant writes the HTML, uploads it, and can allow it to read the files on your behalf.

4. Open the artifact and check it.

Assistants can ask Fieldwerk for a step-by-step guide and a starter template, so you don't need to explain the format. Later, ask for changes rather than a new page:

In Fieldwerk, change my sales dashboard so the chart shows each region's margin too, and note what changed.

The artifact keeps its link and its embed, and the earlier version stays in its history.

Build one yourself

The page lists the files it reads in its <head>, then reads them with a helper Fieldwerk provides:

<script type="application/json" id="fieldwerk-data">
  { "read": ["sales.csv", "targets.json"] }
</script>

<script>
  fieldwerk.readFile("sales.csv").then(
    (f) => draw(f.rows),
    (e) => showMessage(e.message),
  );
</script>

• List up to 20 files, by their exact names.

• Only CSV, TSV and JSON files are read.

• Don't load the helper yourself. Fieldwerk adds it.

• CSV rows come back as text, keyed by column name. Convert numbers yourself.

Allow the artifact to read its files

An artifact doesn't run until someone who can edit the notebook or memo allows it. That is the moment to check what the page is about to read.

• Editors see Allow this artifact to use N files?, with the files listed and an Allow button.

• Everyone else sees that it needs access and a Request access button, which tells the editors.

One approval covers everyone. Afterwards a Data button lists the allowed files and who allowed them, and an editor can Turn off data access there.

If a listed file is renamed or replaced by a different file with the same name, Fieldwerk asks again. A new version of the same file doesn't need a new approval.

Your assistant can do the allowing for you, as you:

In Fieldwerk, allow my sales dashboard to read its files.

What artifacts can't do

• Reach the internet. Code that tries to connect outside Fieldwerk is refused when you save it, with a message saying what to remove.

• Read files they haven't listed, or files outside their notebook or memo.

• Save changes back to files. That's planned, not available yet.

Share an artifact

Turning on an artifact's link (or the link of the memo it's in) also shares the files it reads, in full, with anyone who has the link. Fieldwerk lists those files and asks you to confirm before the link goes on. See Share a file.

A published collection includes an artifact's data when the artifact and every file it reads are part of what's published.