addmi 08-dashboards

© 2009 BMC Educational Services

Dashboards

Information at your fingertips


Dashboards Outline

Dashboard Basics Default dashboards Changing a dashboard

All about channels Using the Chart Channels

Changing presentation style Tooltip Data Drill Down

Editing Dashboards Dashboards at the CLI Channel Edits in the UI


Dashboard: Intro

What: A named arrangement of channels Where: Home page

One dashboard is shown at a time Can switch between a different dashboards

Note: dashboard contents and layout is system wide


Default Dashboard

New users always have the "Default Dashboard" upon login Even if all the dashboards have been removed If a dashboard is removed then all users using it on their home page will be

returned to the Default dashboard


Changing Dashboard

To change a dashboard navigate to the home tab: Find the dashboard icon in the system tray

area of the UI Drop down menu shows list of the

dashboards on the system Choice of which dashboard to view is

stored in the user’s profile and is persistent

Note: supplied dashboards are "read-only“

Cannot be accidentally deleted or modified


All about Channels


What are Channels

Channels are small portals of information in the UI

Most of the information in the UI is presented as channels


Channel Types - Chart

Show graphical information directly in a channel

You can choose the presentation type

You can drill into the data for further analysis


Channel Types - Summary

Show a summary count of nodekinds in the system

Hosts Locations Switches …

A useful starting point for exploring


Channel Types - Video

Shows tutorial videos in a channel

Can also show an external Shockwave Flash Video source

Use Techsmith Jing to record an introduction to your Atrium Discovery project for new users and put it on their Default Dashboard


Channel Types - RSS

Shows recent entries from an RSS feed in a channel

This is not an RSS reader so you can’t mark items as read

Channel has an RSS feed link so users can add the feed to their own reader

Use an internal RSS feed to communicate milestones in your project to your users and stakeholders


Channel Types – Dedicated Channel

There are dedicated channels for some product features

Discovery Status Automatic Grouping


Using Chart Channels


Chart Channel: Changing Presentation Style

Click on the "Change chart type" to cycle through the available chart styles

Not all styles will be available depending on the configuration and data


Changing Presentation Style

This is all done in the browser via JavaScript

Adds no load to the backend


Chart Channel: Tooltip Data

Hover over areas, sectors or points to see details


Chart Channel: Drill down

Whole Chart Drill Down Can view the complete set of

data Click on the "Tabular results"

link at the bottom left corner

Sector Drill Down Click on a sectors to drill down to the underlying data No drill down on a Time Series style

Only the latest set of data can be seeChange the style to Pie or Column to drill down


Chart Channel: Chart Caching

Chart Caching The charts are generated when first used and then cached The cache expires after 10 minutes

Use force refresh in the browser (Ctrl F5) to force an update if needed


Chart Channel: Browser Notes

Recommended Browsers IE7 and IE8 Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 No issues found so far with Safari, Opera, Chrome

Internet Explorer 6 does have issues Occasionally charts will render slightly smaller than the channel Resizing the browser does not cause the chart channels to resize until the

page is refreshed


Editing Dashboards


Copying a Dashboard

To create a new dashboard, take a copy of an existing dashboard: Select the dashboard you want to copy Go back to the dashboards drop down menu again and click the “copy current dashboards”

link The name of the dashboard will change to "Copy of..“ The "(EDIT)" option will appear and a banner will notify the user that the dashboard has

been successfully copied


Dashboard Layout

The layout can be changed, as long as the dashboard is editable

Hint: the "(EDIT)" option can be seen

Grab the title bar area of the channel and move it with the mouse

The other channels will reload as you move the channel into place


Change Dashboard: Add a Channel

Click on "(EDIT)" link to open the dashboard editor Select the channel or channels to add Note: hover over the titles to see channel descriptions


Change Dashboard: Channel Limit Error

There is a limit of 8 channels per dashboard

A warning banner will appear if the limit is exceeded


Change Dashboard: Remove a Channel

Channels can be removed in two ways:1. Click on the red cross remove icon in the top right of the channel

title bar

2. Click "(EDIT)" to open the Dashboard Editor and untick the channels you want to remove


Removing a Dashboard

A dashboard can be removed from the system by using the delete option in the dashboard drop down

Remember that deleting a dashboard removes it from the system, so it will be removed for all users


Dashboards at the CLI


Why do I need to use the CLI?

Copying a dashboard to other appliances Locking a dashboard to prevent accidental edits/removal Changing the default dashboard layout

This means all new users will get a dashboard specific to your site and project when they log in


Dashboard Admin: Definition Files

Dashboard definitions files are stored within /usr/tideway/data/default/dashboards Dashboards are named <dashboard-name>.dash Generated dashboards named <identifier-string>.dash Can be transferred between appliances

Use the dashboard administration utility to associate the dashboard definition files’ filenames with their titles


Dashboard Admin: Read-only

The dashboards that are shipped with the product are read-only Read-only dashboards cannot be copied and modified

Custom dashboards can also be made read-only

The read-only flag for a dashboard is stored in its dashboard definition file The dashboard admin utility can be used to set and reset the read-only flag


Dashboard Admin: Utility Tool

$TIDEWAY/bin/tw_config_dashboards is a script that is used to do various administrative tasks on dashboard definitions files

The script does different tasks depending on the command line options Use the --help flag to see the options


Dashboard Admin Utility Tool: Highlights

List dashboards When the script is run with the --ls option, it lists the files in

/usr/etc/dashboards Filename and dashboard name are printed for each file Locked dashboards are shown

Set read-only flag When the script is run with the --lock option with one or more

dashboard names, the read-only flag is set

Reset read-only flag When the script is run with the --unlock option with one or more

dashboard names, the read-only flag is unset


Channel Edits in the UI


UI Channel Editing

We have an experimental feature to offer some channel editing in the UI

Feedback is welcomed!


What Can Be Done

Preview a channel

Edit some types of existing channel Changes override defaults

Create some type of channel Including the new Video Channel and RSS Channel

Delete/Revert channels Custom ones are removed completely, edited existing ones return to their

system default


Preview Channels

Click on the Preview link to activate the preview lightbox


Edit or Create a Channel (1)

For channels that can be edited there is an Edit link

There are “Add X Channel” buttons at the bottom of the summary to create new channels


Edit or Create a Channel (2)

Remember to Apply your changes


Report Channels

You can add and remove reports from channels You can reorder them


Summary Channels

You can change the kinds listed in channels You can reorder them as well


Video Channels

Can show any SWF movie As well as internal tutorials can also refer to any URL


RSS Channels

Can show any RSS/Atom feed


Online Documentation: http://www.tideway.com/confluence/display/81/Dashboards

Tideway Foundation

Version 7.2

Documentation

Title

Further Resources


Dashboard Exercises

addmi 08-dashboards

Documents

channel channels

new dashboard

dashboard icon

dashboard editor

dashboard contents

existing dashboard

channels channels

default dashboard layout