Salesforce dashboards are visual displays of data from reports, allowing users to create a quick overview of key metrics for their business. There are eleven different component types available, including charts and tables, which can be customized with titles, subtitles, footers, and themes. To build a dashboard, users click the Dashboards tab, then New Dashboard, and choose a report to pull data from, customizing each component as they go. Dashboards can help teams derive different insights from the same reports, making them valuable for sales, marketing, and other teams. By using dashboards, users can gain clearer views of their data and potentially spark new insights.