Welcome to the forum Claire, first up, I'd advise having a closer look at the examples page at the bottom of the menu. It shows how to utilise various components in the system and how they all work together.
Secondly, given you're trying to accomplish something, copy the markup from the dashboard editor to show us what you have done so far and what you're hoping to achieve.
be sure to paste the code between the code (</> button) tags.
Thirdly, turn on the API menu under administration -> edit menu then save at the top, this explains how each individual item in the mango dashboard functions.
Finally, the dashboard utilises AngularJS. So it would be good familiarise yourself with the formatting used to display and manipulate the view you are building.
If you have any further questions, feel free to ask here. I also recommend searching the forums, there are plenty of examples around of what others have done that you may be able to build from.
Fox