Elixir Dashboard Designer User Manual
Contents
1. 15 GT EE 16 ET 18 Report sete P Eae AE 19 Ee bate euet Eege beds 20 Case Study Lasoen e eet repete ee t euge eye ns beeen E ERU eer Cue n 21 Case Study E 23 Je VIEWS ree e N Eeer a Se A ool een 25 rege te Te E 25 Card eg Bes Nee te Set as 25 EL E 25 Split EE 26 CONPENE VIEW ves bate ertt attests SE Ee 26 Maximize rp CLE 26 Drag and RRE 27 4 ACUODS tere e c se 28 InttOdUctIOn i roter estote urat 28 Content BVerits iere Rectore acne ette aie ecce Cg RIAN Oia E 28 NIE e EE 29 Maximize Actions 2 e e elei eh HE TE Sege 29 Refresh JACO epic um tva meii tess 29 SHOW ACOD ote ve edere tuve eee ere Woe bce oS dev aide eret geo Vee Rea tuli vv deo arde du 29 SHOW Gard ACOs von eode PER M RR D es 29 Reset LEE 29 Render Report Acton EE Ee SERA 29 Generate Data Acto s sede ethic RU e Ie EE EE 29 Generate Excel Cube Action e E enemies seen ena 29 Sept ovd 30 Triggering Actions from Events hr savages EE BR ER SEE PE Sa ree e EE 30 Case Study WEE 30 Case Study 2 EE 31 2 Script Reference dee Day 34 rege Ee Te EE 34 Parameters EE EE 342. Finish Cancel 13 Contents The choices for initial selection are None The default no items are initially selected All All items are initially selected First The first item is selected depending on sort order if any Last The last item is selected depending on sort order if any Values This option requires a field name and one or more values to compare against the records All records that contain values of the chosen field that match the value strings will be selected Note that values are strings so any other data types will be formatted into strings if necessary for comparison purposes Chart A chart reads data from a datasource and renders it as a graphical display which sizes to fill the view it is placed in The datasource chosen may be identified by a repository URL in which case the content is fixed or the datasource may be reading from another view in which case the chart will be updated automatically each time the other view is modified There are many parameters that can be used to configure the presentation of the chart most importantly what type of chart is required The chart wizard and range of available charts and options is described in the Elixir Report Designer manual Figure 2 6 Chart on Perspective Perspective View e FruitSales 325 300 275 225 1 200 175 4 2000 1999 1998 1997 Bar column
3. Initial Selection Choose initial selection options None OAI First Last Values Field customer id D Finish In order for the border title of the Table element to display the product_id selected in the Grid element right click anyway on the Table element Select Presentation The default value for Border Title is ContentName which is the name of the element in the perspective This name is editable at the properties of the element To change it to reflect the selected product id enter view Sales selected product_id in the Border Title field Click on Finish to exit from the wizard Try clicking on some of the values under Sales The value selected will also be the border title of the Table element which is similar to Figure 2 15 Results of Case Study 22 Contents Figure 2 15 Results of Case Study 719 customer id product id promotion id store co 1633 719 199 5 0225 2389 719 2 5725 2405 719 1866 2 2785 3572 719 829 13 0135 3866 719 129 1 813 4609 719 1772 2 352 6007 719 1856 2 2785 Case Study 2 In this case study we will demostrate how to use the Chart element drilldown function 1 The first element to create needless to say will be the Chart element Drag FruitSales ds into the Perspective and select Add Chart Aft
4. area and pie charts have selectable regions corresponding to the chart shapes For example clicking on a bar will select all records that contributed to that bar You can create another view which uses this selection as a filter to control its display You can also attach actions so that clicking on a bar will show a new view or card which is mapped to the selection made This is an easy method of creating a drill down chart 14 Contents Available datasources All Selected Unselected only for bar column area and pie charts Cube Table Glint A cube table reads data from a datasource and renders a two dimensional table showing the values derived from those records that form the intersection of the two dimensions There are two ways in which a cube table can be designed The Cube Table wizard provides a step by step dialog to guide the design process This is identical to the wizard used in Elixir Report Designer and is described in that manual The other approach is to create an empty cube table using the wizard just click Finish after choosing a datasource and designing the cube interactively This approach is usually preferred because each change to the cube is immediately reflected in the view If the cube data is required for subsequent processing it is possible to save the cube table contents into a CSV DataSource Excel or XML file Available datasources All Selected Unselected Figure 2 7 Cube Table on Perspec
5. 390 700 Berry 23 0 320 340 760 ple 120 0 232 0 232 0 322 0 range 323 0 320 430 7870 Strawberry 122020 20 700 Berry 343 0 232 0 23 0 3320 250 225 200 175 1 B B B B C C C C 150 1 125 2000 1999 1998 1997 Now we will try creating a Grid element in the Perspective Repeat step 1 to 3 but place the element on top of FruitSales Chart select Add Grid change the name to FruitSales Grid At the next page of the wizard select a field for the Grid element to display Select Company then click on Finish Repeat step 9 and 10 place the element above FruitSales and change the name to Fruit Sales DropDown In the Add Content Wizard select Fruit as the field and check the checkbox that says Show as Drop Down List In the Label field enter Fruit 12 13 14 15 About Elixir Dashboard Designer Figure 1 8 Grid Chart and Table on Perspective FruitSales Grid FruitSales DropDown FruitSales_Chart FruitSales Company Fruit 2000 1999 1998 19 pple range 300 250 1 200 1 150 1 100 50 4 0 1999 1998 pple range D O mmm 00 gt Repeat step and 2 Place the blue region on the right of FruitSales_DropDown and select Add Cube Click through the wizard without changing any settings You can adjust the height an
6. EE 34 Inna E NIE ake hots pote ete ss ie Heo ee Matec a aes eed 35 MAER voces veste ths woes tensa EE 38 lil List of Figures 1 1 A Sample Dashboard ge ttt ettet ERR to Foe Parr e E epe ROTER 1 1 2 Cards Views and Contents ices ee ed os ie ecc e E MEE 2 1 3 The Dashboard Toolbar er pec err ERI erar a EE SERES ENEE SG 2 1 4 Dashboard Dimension iet eed es chee ccs eer us Deedes bep rece eye ee erri rede ke Due tut bap der 3 1 5 Table on Perspective o RE ot aer Eat eek te aye eq ER Teri P e Etage 4 1 6 Placement of Intended Content 5 1 7 Chart and Table on Perspective eren t b Eosin ree 6 1 8 Grid Chart and Table on Perspective HH eere 7 1 9 Completed Perspective oce eerte dp ee ANE E siete Ret 8 2 1 Vew URD EE 9 2 2 Dynamic Dataso rce 1 rrr err EE EE ENEE RR RR ERR ERR PER 10 2 3 Datasource Parameters s iese oe EEEE ES EEEE EE ee EEN teen 11 2 4 The W3C CSS Box Model ott ett rt EU Ee Pete EE Ree ez Parere 13 2 5 Initial Selection Dialog eege ENKEN deed EENS ter eges EE 13 2 6 Chart on Perspective ie e D rte tee rre poesia ENNEN a 14 2 7 Cube Perspective NENNEN NEESS ae EN E ES 15 2 8 Glint on PerspectiVe deene E ott ge vedete ab bh ode E EE coi RETE 16 2 9 Add Content Wizard Seek ee eth ene e 17 2 10 Grid on Perspective i noie pe erre
7. List to create a Drop Down list Enter a name for the Label so a name will be displayed beside the Drop Down list in the Dashboard See Figure 2 9 Add Content Wizard Note that the Sort in Figure 2 9 Add Content Wizard overrides the Sort in the earlier page of the wizard Figure 2 9 Add Content Wizard Add Content Grid View Choose grid display options Field name required Field Direction i amp Across then Down Down then Across _ Sort Single Select _ Show as Drop Down List Label _ Toggle Selection Previous Next Cancel Available datasources All Selected Unselected Contents Figure 2 10 Grid on Perspective FruitSales Apple Orange Strawberry Berry Image An Image element is a rectangular region which picture files can be loaded into Elixir Dashboard Designer supports image formats such as jpg png and gif As jpg and png file formats are supported across all implementations they will be a best choice Bmp and tiff image formats are not supported for Elixir Dashboard Designer Available datasources None Contents Figure 2 11 Image on Perspective Perspective View JOD gt LogoElixir 7 Elixir Technology Report Report templates created by Elixir Report Designer can be shown within a view By default the templates will be rendered with their or
8. R HP d Re EEPE ESTS NE ETENEE O 18 2 11 Im ge on Perspective deen ERENNERT 19 2 12 Report on Perspective estas rt E e eO a e TE ER ep Ele E 20 2 13 Table on Perspective 1 ete terree erue segete reb e eret Sv ees er S po tuae er sea cede 21 2 14 Initial Selection Wiz rd tede ted ree RE DR E SSP EE ENEE Ee 22 2 15 Results of Case Study Sete eder tip eee terree 23 2 16 Results of Case Study ee dE roto p UE te ses POS DO esau e Se 24 3 1 Layout RENS E 25 Rm EEUU 26 4 1 Default screen of Action Wizard emm e e meme rene 31 4 2 Generate Data Wizard ee aen EE t ER P Ee se bete ret EE 31 KO 32 4 4 Render Wizard EE 33 2 I Script EE 34 Chapter 1 About Elixir Dashboard Designer Introduction Elixir Dashboard Designer is a tool for navigating and visualizing enterprise data A dashboard can assemble a comprehensive view of the available information It provides Seamless navigation between data cube and reports with user customizable views e On demand cube creation and modification of dimensions and measures for data analysis e Graphical visualization of data and OLAP cube e User definable linking and filtering of data from disparate data sources Dynamic report generation from view selections A Perspective is the set of views contents and actions that together form a dashboard Dashboards are stored in files wit
9. matched This allows lt MyChart MyView click SomeURL gt to be matched by an action defining lt MyView click gt which means any click on MyView Only actions which are marked as enabled are eligible to be invoked in response to an event This allows a subset of actions and events to be tested and verified without side effects from others Multiple actions can be triggered by a single event if they all match the event attributes The order of invocation is based on the order of actions in the Actions table Actions can be raised or lowered in the action list to control the order of execution Case Study 1 This case study will do a simple illustration on how to use the Generate Data action 1 Create a Perspective and give it a unique name 2 Drag FruitSales ds available in ElixirSamples DataSource into the perspective and select Add Table Click through the wizard and click on Finish to exit from the wizard 3 Table element will be created on the perspective add an action to generate data go to the Perspective tab At the bottom of the screen click on the Act ion tab then click on the Add icon and the Action Wizard will appear as shown in Figure 4 1 Default screen of Action Wizard 30 Actions 6 With this action on double clicking on FruitSales the Table element you will be able to generate the data in FruitSales Figure 4 1 Default screen of Action Wizard Action FruitSales FruitS
10. of utilising this feature will be using on an element that displays data based on the selected unselected of a Contents view This will be discussed later in the case study You can mix these for example ContentName ShortDate will show both the content name and short date in the title For other titles you can use script substitutions like this java lang System getProperty java version Any JavaScript syntax which can call Java as shown inside a JavaScript substitution will be evaluated when the title is shown Figure 2 4 The W3C CSS Box Model Initial S When m m m E m m m m E Top TM Margin Transparent BM mm oe mmm M wm ee ee ee mmm ee ee mmm Bottom ame Magn edge Border edge Padding edge Content edge election the dashboard is first loaded it is often useful for contents to be given initial selections so that the user isn t presented with a blank page No initial selection is provided by default but you can use the Ini tial Selection dialog available on the popup menu of each content or if you prefer each view of the content The dialog is shown in Figure 2 5 Initial Selection Dialog Figure 2 5 Initial Selection Dialog Initial Selection Initial Selection Choose initial selection options None First Last Values Field customer id
11. set of images in a repository folder that are used to construct a frame around the content and padding To select a border you need to select the folder that contains the images There are a number of samples provided in ElixirSamples Resources Borders for example you might choose ElixirSamples Resources Borders Lavender You can create your own custom borders by following the examples Your borders don t need to have images on all sides of the frame Any missing images will just appear blank It is important for correct web display that the widths and heights of all images are consistent For example the heights of topleft top and topright images must be the identical If a border is chosen that supports titles if there is a title xml in the border folder then any text entered here will be placed on the border using the information provided by the title xml You may either use a fixed text string or substitutions The available substitutions are ContentName the name of the content ViewName the name of the view ShortDate the short form of the current date ShortTime the short form of the current time JavaScript Any JavaScript after an equals will be evaluated at runtime and the result substituted view ViewName Selection Field The field name of the selected unselected record in a particular view However the element must be refreshed before being able to show the updated border title An ideal way
12. Elixir Dashboard Designer User Manual Release 7 3 Elixir R pertoire Elixir Technology Pte Ltd Elixir Dashboard Designer User Manual Release 7 3 Elixir Technology Pte Ltd Published 2008 Copyright 2005 2008 Elixir Technology Pte Ltd All rights reserved Solaris Java and all Java based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems Inc Microsoft and Windows are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation Table of Contents T About Blixar Dashboard Designer 2 Pee ENEE ENEE E ENEE EEN 1 IntroductiOnmn uis vete tern Tb dise 1 Contents 5 Acsi canes EM same I LM E 2 b a Deedee elie Marais thes 2 ee E 2 The Dashboard Toolb r erecto GENEE Eeer bale Eed 2 Dashboard DimensiOn EE 3 Case EE 3 hs teks E sande Gok LU T moa ute meen LUE LI 9 Jnteoelue font Ze Ee Ae ease WEE EE EE EINE e Eet Ee 9 Dynamic DataSOurces ise retro vertendsseesbegeae sense soos 9 Filtering Sorting and Extracting 2 0 0 0 cee 11 Presentation eege Eet natasha dE sate skh geen eaten 12 Initial e RE 13 GATE EC mee Rese 14 Cube KEE 15 GIN bate detente wna be SE dale
13. ML 37 Index A action 2 25 chart 14 content 2 9 26 csv 15 20 cube table 15 D datasource 9 15 20 drag and drop 27 E events 2 excel 15 20 F filter 9 G glint 15 19 grid 16 image 18 maximize 26 pdf 19 R report 19 5 split 26 T table 20 toolbar 2 V view 2 X xml 15 20 38
14. ales Event click Type Refresh Target FruitSales Cancel In the Action Wizard you can customize the actions you want In this case study for View select FruitSales For Content select FruitSales For Event select doubleClick For Type select Generate Data For View select FruitSales Exit the wizard by clicking on the Ok button Go to the View tab Try selecting a few records in FruitSales while holding on the Ctrl key After selecting double click within the Table element and Generate Data Wizard will appear as shown in Figure 4 2 Generate Data Wizard A11 will mean saving all the data in the Table element Selected will mean saving only the selected records in the Table element Unselected will mean saving all the records other than the selected ones Figure 4 2 Generate Data Wizard Generate Data 2 Choose which records from FruitSales to generate All Clicking on the OK button will lead you to the page for selecting the format you wish to save to designate the location for saving and the name of the file Clicking on Save will generate the file Case Study 2 In this case study we will demostrate how to render a report in a Perspective which is similar to the Report Designer using Action We can continue using the Perspective created in Case Study 1 1 Since we are rendering a report we will need a report template Create a new report template and give it a uni
15. d initial selection About Elixir Dashboard Designer Back Just like a browser this button reverts to the previous dashboard state This can undo any undesirable change or navigate back to a previous position to allow further exploration Forward Again just like a browser this button takes you forward again redoing any action that was undone by pressing Back Card Combo This combo box shows all of the cards in the dashboard and allows you to choose one to view Actions can also be used to change the card as a result of events Dashboard Dimension The dimension of a dashboard can be specified by selecting the Perspective root of the view tree as shown in Figure 1 4 Dashboard Dimension The dimensions are measured in pixels Figure 1 4 Dashboard Dimension Views 1 Perspective Perspective carat width 1 000 Height 560 Case Study This case study will create a simple dashboard built upon the ElixirSamples DataSource FruitS ales de datasource 1 Selecta FileSystem Right click to select Add gt Perspective from the filesystem popup menu 2 When the Add Perspective window appears enter a unique name for the Perspective and click Finish 3 Drag FruitSales ds from the repository to the workspace On releasing of the mouse a popup with four different options will appear It s for the user to select the element to add to the Perspective In this case we will add a Table element by se
16. d on The view attribute is the name of the view the event occurred on The event attribute is the name of the event An example event might be lt Employees LeftTable doubleClick gt In this section we will describe the events that each kind of content can generate Chart click key value doubleClick key value refresh select Cube Table click doubleClick refresh select Glint click url doubleClick url refresh Report click url doubleClick url refresh Table refresh select Grid click key value doubleClick key value refresh select Elements written in braces like this xxx are substituted by dynamic values depending on where the event occurs These are usually preceded by a colon symbol Elements written in square brackets like this yyy are optional and may not be present if the information is not available For example a bar chart will have both a key and value string available whereas a pie chart will only offer a key Here s a description of when each event is sent click A click event is sent whenever a user clicks on a supporting view The click may include extra information after the event name for example click url if the click occurs over a mouse sensitive region in a glint or report or click key value if the click occurs over a chart doubleClick A doubleClick event is sent whenever a user clicks twice on the same view within a short p
17. d width of each element by dragging the sides At the end of this the whole Perspective should look something as shown in Figure 1 9 Completed Perspective About Elixir Dashboard Designer Figure 1 9 Completed Perspective f FruitSales Grid FruitSales el FruitSales Cube rt v a E Y sete Count Compan FruitSales_Chart FruitSales 300 250 200 150 1 100 4 501 1999 1998 Chapter 2 Contents Introduction Elixir Dashboard Designer provides different kinds of content from which you can compose your views Every content must have a unique name within the Perspective so that it can be referenced Each kind of content reads data and renders it into a view The views then provide the ability to interact with the content Most kinds of content read from a datasource There are two kinds of datasource available the ds files in the repository which can be JDBC XML etc and dynamic datasources where the data records are extracted from other views The first kind of datasource will be identified with a repository URL whereas the dynamic data will be accessed with a view URL When the datasource is defined in the repository a schema is associated with it and is available to the content designer When the datasource is defined by a view there is no explicit schema available it depends on the content of the view which can itself be dynamic The solution is to allow vi
18. e and name it Sales_param Then follow the steps mentioned above except in the SQL Query enter WHERE sales_fact_1997 product_id id after the line that says FROM sales_fact_1997 Infer the schema When prompted for the id enter and exit from the wizard by clicking on the Finish button Create a new Perspective and give it a unique name Drag Sales ds to the perspective Select Add Grid When the wizard appears click on the Next button twice Inthe Expression Builder enter 100 in the Amount field Then click on the Set Value button This will extract the top 100 data from the datasource Click on Next twice At this screen of the wizard the user will need to select the field for the Grid element to display In the drop down list select product_id Finally exit from the wizard by clicking on the Finish button The Grid element will be displayed on the perspective with Sales as the border title Drag Sales_Param ds into the perspective Place it on the right of the Grid element On release of the mouse click select Add Table At the second page of the wizard you will see the parameter defined in datasource Under Value change 3 10 to 21 Contents 10 11 12 view Sales selected product_id This will pass in the value selected by the user from the Grid element to Sales_param ds as a parameter The Table element will display the respective results At the next page of the wizard add a Sort by clicking on
19. e showing and in the case of table columns can also be discarded This means the user can focus on just the few fields that are important Of course for even more control then table can be backed with a Composite DataSource that provides additional processing options Table data can be saved into a CSV DataSource Excel or XML file for subsequent processing Available datasources All Selected Unselected 20 Contents Figure 2 13 Table on Perspective Perspective View 4 FruitSales Company Fruit 1999 1998 Apple 102 0 199 0 Orange 32 0 55 0 Strawberry 20 0 39 0 Apple 102 0 199 0 Orange 32 0 55 0 Strawberry 20 0 39 0 Berry 32 0 34 0 Apple 232 0 232 0 Orange 32 0 43 0 Strawberry 2 0 2 0 O O O CO xm mjam qmja Berry 232 0 23 0 Case Study 1 In this case study filtering sorting and extracting data from the wizard and using view ViewName Selection will be covered The idea of this dashboard is to select a product id from a Grid element and a Table element will display records with the selected product id The border title for the Table element will display the product id selected 1 Create a JDBC datasource and name it Sales using MondrianFoodMart Click on the Query Builder button and use the table named sales_fact_1997 Select all the fields Infer the schema and end the wizard Create another JDBC datasourc
20. ell rendering that you see on the dashboard 29 Actions Script Action The Script action is the most powerful because it can interact with the Perspective views contents and even actions directly This action is intended for power users and developers The JavaScript code executes in the context of the Perspective application itself which provides some useful helper functions to access content and views e Content getContent contentName e Panel getPanel panelName void refresh panelName In addition some context objects are available e Parameters Use Parameters get Name to access any dynamic parameter values State The overall dashboard state from here you can navigate and interact with all parts of the dashboard e thisState The state on which the event was triggered e thisEvent The event String that was triggered Note The full Perspective scripting API is described in Chapter 5 Script Reference and the separate PML Object Model documentation Triggering Actions from Events Actions are defined using the Actions table on the Perspective tab Each action identifies the trigger conditions by defining the combination of lt content view event gt that it responds to An empty value means that it matches all possible events For example lt CubeData select gt matches the select event on CubeData the content in any view For event name matching only the text string up to the first colon is
21. er clicking on Next 4 times you will need to select a chart type Select Pie followed by Pie chart then Next For the Key tab select Fruit For Value tab select 2000 Exit the wizard by clicking on Finish Next drag FruitSales ds again into the Perspective and place it on the right This time select Add Table On the first page of Add Content Wizard click on the View tab and select FruitSales then Selected Exit the wizard by clicking on Finish On the Perspective workspace try clicking on the different slices on the Pie Chart Since the Key of the Pie Chart is Fruit when the user clicks on the different slice the Table element will display the records with the selected Fruit which is similar to Figure 2 16 Results of Case Study 2 23 Contents Figure 2 16 Results of Case Study 2 f FruitSales_Table Comm Fruit 2000 1999 1998 1997 Orange 323 0 320 55 0 23 0 Orange 323 0 320 550 23 0 Orange 323 0 320 43 0 787 0 24 Chapter 3 Views Introduction Elixir Dashboard Designer provides a hierarchy of views to control the layout of content The topmost view is the Card There may be many cards in a dashboard but only one card is visible at a time and switches between cards can be done either manually using the combo box on the titlebar or based on actions For example a double click on a chart could switch to a card that contains a breakdown of the informatio
22. er to this states which support selection allow scripted access to the selection values as described below 35 Script Reference tate e DataTable getDataSource e List DataRecord getSelectedRecords BitSet getSelection boolean hasSelection void setSelection BitSet sel GridState e boolean allSelected e DataTable getDataSource e List DataRecord getSelectedRecords String getSelected Value BitSet getSelection e String getValues boolean hasSelection void setSelection BitSet sel TableState e DataTable getDataSource e List DataRecord getSelectedRecords BitSet getSelection boolean hasSelection void setSelection BitSet sel The infrastructure objects exposed by these APIs are DataTable and DataRecord DataSchema and DataType These are all in the com elixirtech data2 package The useful services of these classes include DataTable e int getRecordCount e DataRecord getRecord int idx e DataRecord getRecords e DataSchema getSchema DataRecord e Object getData int idx e Object getData e DataSchema getSchema DataSchema e int getColumnIndex String columnName String getColumnName int idx e DataType getColumnType int idx The following DataType constants are defined BLOB 36 Script Reference BOOLEAN BYTE BYTE_ARRAY CHAR CLOB DATE DOUBLE FLOAT INTEGER LONG OBJECT SHORT STRING TIME TIMESTAMP UNKNOWN X
23. ew based datasources to explicitly load a schema When a datasource has been chosen for a content the subsequent page in the wizard will show the schema of that datasource if one is available If no schema is available the Load Schema button will be available to allow one to be explicitly loaded The data schema needs to be available in order to support options like filtering Each content that reads from a datasource is allowed to filter the records before rendering them The filtering options allow records to be selected based on criteria such as Equals Greater Than In Range In DataSet etc These are discussed in the Filter Processor description of the Elixir Data Designer manual Dynamic DataSources Dynamic datasources allow a content to read it s data from another view rather than from a fixed datasource This allows the user to select an item in one view and see related items appear automatically in another view A dynamic datasource is identified by a URL with the protocol view The next part of the URL is the name of the view For example view Top Left would use the data supplied by the view called Top Left Many views support selection and it is often useful to show information related to the selected records of another view This can be accomplished by adding the suffix selected onto the URL Similarly unselected will use those records that are not selected Taking the previous example the URL view Top Left selected would ge
24. f the gap being dragged This is a useful option for direct manipulation of the views themselves in conjunction with drag and drop described in the section called Drag and Drop Content View Each content view identifies a content by name to be shown within it The content can be changed dynamically by the user explicitly choosing a new content or through an action which can trigger the content change Each content view should have a unique name so that it can be referenced as part of a view URL to link records to other contents Maximize A single content view can be maximized to fill the entire Perspective The view can be maximized by choosing the Maximize option from the titlebar or by double clicking on the titlebar Similarly the view can be restored to it s original size by choosing the Restore option from the titlebar or by double clicking again on the titlebar It is also possible to maximize and restore a view with a user action such as double clicking In this case the view to be maximized might not even be on the current card In this situation the chosen view will be maximized as expected and on restoration the original card will remain visible This approach means it is easy to use other cards to hold a number of popup views and maximize them based on different user actions Actions can also be used to restore views to their normal size which has the effect of returning to the original card 26 Views D
25. h the extension 1 which stands for Perspective Markup Language Figure 1 1 A Sample Dashboard Elixir Repertoire 7 0 0 f fe fc D Hu 7 D ElbirSamplesDashboard Corporate Performance Management Performance Management Dashboard pmi D Perspective View lt Overall Trends and KPI A Elixi Y Elixir Technology Severity Level Click to Drill Down For Year 2002 2003 2004 Maintenance Job Types Corrective Enhancement Planned Predictive Preventive Maintenance Job Status Critical Major Minor To achieve this powerful and flexible solution Elixir Dashboard Designer defines Content Views and Actions About Elixir Dashboard Designer Contents The content is the underlying data and presentation This could be a report or cube backed by a data source or a chart showing data derived from other Contents Each content added to a Perspective has unique name allowing it to be referenced by views The different kinds of content supported by in a dashboard are described in Chapter 2 Contents Views A view acts as a frame for content Content may appear in different views at different times Views may have titlebars that allow interaction with the underlying content and act as placeholders for connecting content together For example a chart may receive it s data for rendering from the selection in another view All vie
26. he records into ascending or descending order based on the values in fields Multi level sorting is supported so you can sort by Country and then City and the tool will ensure that the Cities are sorted within their respective Countries Certain views such as Grid and Chart also support sorting Sorting within the view will override any earlier sorting but will occur after any extraction For example you can sort sales people by performance extract the top ten and then show them in a chart sorted in alphabetical order Two variants of sort are supported regular Ascending and Descending and Simple Ascending and Simple Descending The Simple options are very fast but don t take into account complex character differences for example letters with accents produced by merged Unicode character combinations The regular Ascending and Descending use the full Unicode algorithms Further the Simple variants treat whitespace as significant whereas the Unicode algorithms don t just like a dictionary Extraction is the retention of certain records based on their position in the data set You might choose to extract those records at the top or the bottom of the set presumably the order is significant probably because they have just been sorted You can choose to retain either a fixed number or a percentage of all the records If a percent value is chosen then the value will be rounded up to include partial records For example if you choose 1 you will
27. how card action shows a named card in place of the current one Reset Action The Reset action reverts the dashboard back to the default contents and initial selections This action is particularly useful for web based dashboards where the server session remembers the current state throughout the user session Add a button image with a Reset action to your dashboard so that the user can easily reset the dashboard to its original state without having to logoff and logon again Render Report Action The Render Report action will render the selected report in the perspective with the renderer selected by the user The output is identical to the rendering in the Report Designer Often dashboards will be created so that the user can dynamically construct the report contents by navigating through the data views You can then provide a button image so that the final report can be preserved Generate Data Action The Generate Data action can generate data in the selected element to 4 different formats They are XML Excel Comma Separated Data CSV and Datasource This action outputs the data as records so any formatting of the display is not preserved If you need to preserve the format of a dashboard cube then use the Generate Excel Cube Action below Generate Excel Cube Action The Generate Excel Cube action can generate data in the selected cube as an Excel spreadsheet Unlike the Generate Data Action this action preserves the cube structure and c
28. iginal datasources as if rendered within Elixir Report Designer itself However you can also substitute new datasources derived from dynamic views in the Perspective This allows interactive selection and filtering of data values for reporting The report can be saved into any Elixir Report Designer output format including Glint PDF and HTML Note that within a Perspective a report is always shown in Streamed mode no page breaks page headers or footers When the report is saved it is possible to choose either Streamed and Paged versions if the output format supports it Available datasources None Contents Figure 2 12 Report on Perspective Perspective View 4 FruitSales FruitS ales 201 323 102 32 20 102 e 199 2320 23 23 199 232 23 39 70 76 232 322 43 781 2 70 332 e i La La to o H Lo ojo Lu bo Lu Lu La e oli w opo w Ka t3 t2 Z SlelelelSlels al Fle ala Fls E 3 E e e B B B B D Ch a o o a Table A table shows records from a datasource one row per record This is a one dimensional presentation unlike the cube table which has two dimensions of variation As with the other datasource based contents the records can be filtered befor
29. l Split will split the dashboard into 2 halves and each view placed beside each other Only 2 views can be seen in the dashboard 25 Views Vertical Split A Vertical Split will split the dashboard into half and 1 view will be on top of the other Like the Horizontal Split only 2 views can be seen in the dashboard Quartered View A Quartered View will split the dashboard into 4 equal squares After setting the Default Layout a user can still add view s to the dashboard manually Split View A split view will present it s child views which may be content views or more splits in a sequence either left to right horizontal mode or top to bottom vertical mode The amount of space given to each child depends on the weight attribute of the child Each child is given a space proportional to it s weight divided by the sum of all child weights The default weight is 100 and unless changed will give equal spacing to each child Weights are used rather than explicit sizes in pixels or inches etc so that the Perspective output can scale properly to be shown on different size devices Editing can be done in the screen as shown below Figure 3 2 Split View Views Perspective Split 9 E Carat Name Split Left j Weight 100 o Right Direction Horizontal Vertical Splits can also be resized manually by dragging the gap between views Resizing varies the weights of the cells on either side o
30. lecting Add Table 4 Onclicking a table with all the data from FruitSales ds will be displayed The Table element will appear About Elixir Dashboard Designer Figure 1 5 Table on Perspective FruitSales ple Orange Strawberry ple Orange Strawberry Berry ple Orange Strawberry B B B B Drag FruitSales ds into the workspace again A blue box will be shown to indicate the placement of intended content as shown in Figure 1 6 Placement of Intended Content Over here we will be placing it on the left of the table When the mouse click is released select Add Chart and the content will be created on that region About Elixir Dashboard Designer Figure 1 6 Placement of Intended Content 6 Inthe Add Content Wizard change the name to FruitSales_Chart for easy reference 7 In this example we will create a Column Chart with Fruit as the key and 1997 1998 1999 and 2000 as the values About Elixir Dashboard Designer Figure 1 7 Chart and Table on Perspective FruitSales_Chart FruitSales Company Fruit 2000 1999 1998 1997 Apple 201 0 102 0 199 0 232 0 Orange 323 0 320 55 0 230 Strawberry 990 200 390 23 0 201 0 102 0 199 0 232 0 r 325 300 275 1 ange 323 0 32 0 55 0 230 Strawberry 99 0 200
31. n in that chart Within a card there may be two kinds of view split views which divide the available space amongst their children and content views which render content such as a chart or table Card The card is the top level view As mentioned in the introduction a dashboard can contain many cards but only one can be visible at a time Every card must have a unique name allowing it to be selected in response to user actions A card is implemented as a kind of split view So the discussion of split view below also applies to card Cards can also define a background colour which will fill the whole background of the dashboard Individual contents can set their own background colours which only affects their individual view rectangles The default background colour is white Layout When the Card is selected the layout of the views will be displayed accordingly in the Card panel Also right clicking on the Card then Default Layout shows options available for setting the layout of the Card as shown in Figure 3 1 Layout The name background colour and direction of the Card can be changed from here Figure 3 1 Layout Card Name Card1 Background Direction Horizontal Vertical Ri Add split Horizontal Split Add view Vertical Split Delete Quartered View Single View A Single View as seen from the name will only 1 view can be seen Horizontal Split A Horizonta
32. name and output type eg XML CSV XLS etc Get the name of the current card Get the value associated with the parameter name or null if the parameter is not found Get the Perspective object which represents the whole dashboard See the PML Object Model documentation for full details on the dashboard object model This provides another mechanism for getting the individual state objects it is synonymous with State name as described above Maximize the named view which need not be on the current card The current card does not change on restore the original card will show again Render the named report The user will be prompted to enter the render type and destination Reset the current dashboard state back to the initial default view states and selections Restore any maximized view back to the normal position Show the named content in the named view Replaces the current card with a new one which could come from the same dashboard file or jump to another dashboard The perspective parameter should contain the full URL of a pml file eg repository User jane mydash pml or null if the card is located in the current dashboard All state objects support the refresh service to force a refresh of the view In most cases this is handled automatically by the dashboard when it detects that the display needs to be updated All state objects also provide a getName service which will return the name of the state Furth
33. provides a set of useful services and acts as a container for the named states which link the contents and views that you define To access a particular state you need to append the name to the State object For example if you have a view named MyCube you can access the state of that view like this 34 Script Reference State MyCube If your view name contains spaces then you need to use an alternate JavaScript syntax State Cube to achieve the same effect We will start by reviewing the API of the State object itself Note that most of these services are available through the Action mechanism so you don t have to use scripts to perform these commands these services are only for situations where you want to chain a few actions together in a certain order or maybe add some additional scripted logic void excelCube String cubeName void generate String contentName String getCurrentCard String getParameterValue String name Perspective getPerspective IState getState String name void maximize String viewName void render String reportName void reset void restore void show String view String content void showCard String perspective String card Individual States Generate the presentation of a cube as an Excel spreadsheet The user will be prompted to enter a filename Generate the data shown by a particular content as a file The user will be prompted to enter a file
34. que name In this case study we name it Fruit Report Click Next For the datasource we will use FruitSales ds available in ElixirSamples DataSource Click Next As for the report 31 Actions type we will use a Standard Report Tabular Report Click Next For simplicity we will use all the fields in FruitSales ds To move the fields to the Report column all at one go you can click on the second button from the top Click on Finish to exit from the wizard On exiting of the wizard the report template would have been created To add this report template to the perspective go to the perspective and simply drag the file to the perspective In this case study we will add it to the right of FruitSales At the second page of the Edit Content wizard click on the empty field under Mapping then click on the button Inthe DataSet Chooser wizard click on the View tab Select FruitSales then Selected Exit the DataSet Chooser wizard by clicking on Ok Exit the Edit Content wizard by clicking on Finish To add an action to generate the report template go to the Perspective tab At the Action tab click on the Add icon and the Action Wizard will appear For the View and Content select Fruit Report For the Event select doubleClick For the Type select Render Report For the View select Fruit Report Exit the wizard by clicking on the Ok button With this the report template will display records selected from FruitSales Now t
35. rag and Drop As well as populating cards using the wizard it is possible to create views dynamically Dragging and dropping glint files report templates and datasources from the repository onto a card enables interactive positioning With this approach the tool will automatically insert the split views necessary to support the content views that are dropped When dragging over a view a blue box is shown to indicate the current drop region When near to the edge of a view any drop will create a new content view on that side introducing a split view if necessary When dropping directly over a view the old view will be replaced by a new one showing the new content Note that when creating views this way the content and view names are initialized automatically by the tool to ensure they are unique It is possible to adjust the names later if desired 27 Chapter 4 Actions Introduction Many kinds of content can fire events when the user interacts with them These events may in turn trigger actions that manipulate or update the views being shown This chapter describes the events that each kind of content can generate what kinds of actions can be performed and then explores how to handle those events in order to trigger actions Content Events Users interacting with content generate events that consist of three pieces of information lt content view event gt The content attribute is the name of the content that the event occurre
36. reiod of time and without moving the mouse A click event will always precede a doubleClick event refresh A refresh event is sent each time a view is rendered because the underlying data has changed It is not necessary to respond to this event to update dependent views this is handled internally select A select action occurs when a user changes the selection state of those contents that maintain a selection eg table It is not necessary to respond to this event to update 28 Actions dependent views eg those that depend on view XXX selected this is handled internally Available Actions When an event is received it can trigger zero or more actions The available actions are Maximize Action The maximize action controls the maximized state of a named view There are three types of action possible Maximize Restore and Toggle Note that it is possible to maximize a view from a different card and it will show over the current card until it is restored or toggled off The current card will not be affected by the action Refresh Action The refresh action forces a named view to render it s content The refresh action is usually handled internally for dependent views but may be useful if the data is changed from outside Perspective for example through JavaScript or because of a timed change Show Action The show action replaces the current content of a named view with a different content Show Card Action The s
37. ry selecting some records from FruitSales The report template will show the selected records which is something like Figure 4 3 Sample Figure 4 3 Sample FruitSales FruitSales_Report Company Fruit 2000 1999 1998 1997 pple 201 0 102 0 199 0 232 0 rom 823 0320 een 23 0 Strawberry 990 20 0 39 0 23 0 pple 201 0 102 0 1989 0 232 0 Orange 323 0320 55 0 23 0 Strawberry 990 20 0 390 70 0 FruitS ales Berry 230 320 340 Pen pple 120 0 232 0 232 0 322 0 Orange 323 0320 430 787 0 Strawberry 122020 20 700 Berry 343 0 232 0 23 0 332 0 w100 B C To render the report double click within the area of the report template as configured the Action wizard The Render Wizard which is similar to the one in Report Designer will appear as shown in Figure 4 4 Render Wizard Select the format you wish to render the report to and run through the wizard if you need to do any extra configurations 32 Actions Figure 4 4 Render Wizard Render Wizard Choose A Renderer Print launch a viewer or save to disk Standard web Others CSV Image KE Print IMG amp CSV Glint A PDF E RTF GLINT 5 IML PS E XLS v Launch viewer All Pages _ Save to disk Cancel Previous Finish 7 report will be genera
38. still get one record even if there are only twenty records in the set 11 Contents Presentation Each kind of content has some common presentation characteristics along with some content specific ones These are all editable from the Presentation Wizard accessible from the Presentation popup menu item The common characteristics are Padding Margins Background Title Bar Tip Border Name Border Title Padding is the area inside the border which provides insets for the content area The background of the padding is set according to the background colour of the content See Figure 2 4 The W3C CSS Box Model Margins is the area outside the border which provides insets for the border rectangle The background of the margins is set according to the background colour of the card that the content is shown on See Figure 2 4 The W3C CSS Box Model The background colour is used to fill the background of the border and padding rectangles along with the content area If no background is specified then usually the card background will show though this depends on the content type and other content specific backgrounds Title Bar Tip is a field for entering some text for the tooltip The tooltip will appear when a cursor is placed over the top bar of the element s content border You will need to enter some text under Title Bar Tip and apply border to the element before any tooltip can be seen A Border is a
39. t the selected data records only from the Top Left view Figure 2 1 View URL E a Contents The tool will manage the connection between views so that any view that depends on another is automatically updated when the dependent view changes There is usually no need to define explicit actions to enable this behaviour If you use scripts to extend the dependency mechanism for example changing the dependency dynamically then you can explicitly define the dependency on the last page of the content wizard It is important to note that datasources can only be read from views not from contents This is because each content may be filtered and selected differently within different views at the same time The benefit of selecting through views is that the same view may show different contents at different times and the dynamic data connection is still maintained For each kind of content described below there is an indication of Available datasources that indicates what options each supports Support for All means the view name can be used to get the entire datasource of the view Support for Selected means the view name followed by selected can be used to get the selected records from the view Support for Unselected means the view name followed by unselected can be used to get the unselected records from the view The figure below Figure 2 2 Dynamic Datasource shows the screen where a user selects a dynamic datasource to
40. ted to your desired format after clicking on Finish 33 Chapter 5 Script Reference Introduction Dashboards are scriptable using JavaScript Script Actions This chapter will introduce the essential APIs for controlling the Dashboard through scripts Each view that is positioned on a card in the dashboard is accessible through a state object The view itself is not accessible because it may be a graphical view ie in the Designer or Remote tool or it may be an HTML view in a browser The states can be identified by the name of the view they represent To create a JavaScript action choose the Perspective tab on the designer and add a new Action to the Action table at the bottom right Choose Script as your Action type and proceed to add your script in the available field The dialog is shown in Figure 5 1 Script Action Figure 5 1 Script Action Action Sample click gt Script 77 this JavaScript will be executed when the user clicks on the view 77 showing the content called Samp lel 1 Ok Parameters The Parameters object holds the dynamic parameters the user has entered e String get String name This is equivalent to using name in other parts of the dashboard Within scripts substitution will work but Parameters get name should be preferred because it is more efficient State The State object represents the dashboard as a whole It
41. the Add icon Select product and Ascending for the Name and Sort Order respectively This will sort the data according to the product_id in ascending order Click on the Next button twice Over here you will be able to do some filtering of data Under When of promotion_id select Not Equals As for the Condition enter the value 0 This will filter away all the records where the promotion_id is zero Finally click on Finish to exit from the wizard When an error appears saying that there is an error building the datasource table for repository caused by a syntax error in the query expression this is the correct behavior This is because when the perspective tries to load the data in all the elements the Table element doesn t have any data to load There is no value being passed to the parameter therefore causing the error To solve this problem you can add Initial Selection to the Grid element With Initial Selection the Table element will have a value to pass to the datasource when it loads To add Initial Selection right click on the Grid element and select Initial Selection You will then see the Initial Selection Wizard like Figure 2 14 Initial Selection Wizard Select First For the Field select customer_id Click on Finish With this setting the first record of the Sales element will be selected based on customer_id when the dashboard first loads Figure 2 14 Initial Selection Wizard Initial Selection
42. tive Perspective View A lt cara FruitSales DV All Count Fruit 11 PS 3 Apple Berry Orange Strawberry eh Le eh Le B Apple Berry Orange Strawberry gc Apple Berry Orange Strawberry The glint content type renders a glint file to produce a graphical view Glint is Elixir s native vector graphics format It is designed to be extremely compact to minimize network traffic and reduce memory requirements on low end machines Instructions on generating a glint file can be found in the Report Designer documentation This is useful for displaying fixed content and pre rendered output For example a view could be based on a FileSystem DataSource to show a list of glint files Selecting a file would load it and display it in another view allowing quick creation of a customized interface to access pre rendered reports Available datasources None 15 Contents Figure 2 8 Glint on Perspective Perspective View A lt FruitSales FruitS ales Strawberry Strawberry al 355 B pubes gt 00 gt a 3 755 The grid content type is a special kind of table The grid renders one field from each record and allows for a more compact representation where the fields may be displayed in a grid layout Before rendering any duplicate fields are removed and the
43. use Figure 2 2 Dynamic Datasource Edit Content Table Choose a data source Name lFruitSales URL Irepository Sample FruitSales ds Repository View Left All Right C Selected Unselected L Auto Refresh Previous Next Finish Cancel If a datasource has a parameter there will be a page in the wizard for specifying the value of the parameter as shown in Figure 2 3 Datasource Parameters 10 Contents Figure 2 3 Datasource Parameters Add Content Enter DataSource Parameters Enter parameter values to be passed to the datasource Finish Previous Next Filtering Sorting and Extracting Data from a datasource or another view can be filtered and sorted before being passed to the view Certain records can also be extracted for example the top ten or bottom five can be retained and the rest discarded this extraction operation occurs after any filtering and sorting Filtering allows you to define rules that each record is tested against A typical rule might be Country Equals Singapore or Salary Greater Than 2000 Only those records that pass all the rules are allowed to proceed The filter criteria used here are the same as those used in the Filter Processor in the Data Designer manual Please see that discussion for full details on the options available Sorting allows you to sort t
44. values can optionally be sorted When you select a field in the grid you are actually selecting all records in the datasource that have that selected value For example with a grid showing the Field Month selecting April will select all records where Month April When designing a grid you can choose a direction Across then Down or Down then Across and either length in that direction For example 4 Across then Down grid will place the cells like this There will be four cells in each horizontal row and the fields will be added across then down Altern atively 3 Down then Across grid would look like this 1 4 7 2 5 3 In this case there are four cells vertically and the fields are added down then across 16 Contents A grid can also be displayed as a Drop Down list This can be done on the second page of the Add Content wizard The second page of Add Content wizard is shown in Figure 2 9 Add Content Wizard The normal behaviour of grid selection is to turn off other selections each time a new selection is made unless Control is held down The grid also includes a Toggle Selection option which changes the behaviour so that the first click selects an item and a subsequent click on the same item is required to deselect it This behaviour is often preferred as it prevents accidentally losing a set of existing selections by forgetting to press Control Check on the checkbox that says Show as Drop Down
45. ws also have unique names to allow this kind of referencing Views are grouped together into cards Elixir Dashboard Designer shows one card containing one or more views at a time and user actions can be used to trigger navigation between cards The different kinds of view supported by dashboards are described in Chapter 3 Views Figure 1 2 Cards Views and Contents Perspective Actions Actions are invoked in response to events Typically these are user interaction events like selecting row in a table or clicking on a detail in a report Certain actions are preconfigured if a chart shows the data from a table and the table contents changes then the chart is automatically refreshed Other actions can be user defined For example double clicking on a chart may open another view on that data Actions are chosen based on a combination of the user event the view and the content involved so a double click on two charts may result in two completely different actions it is completely user definable The different kinds of actions supported by a dashboard are described in Chapter 4 Actions The Dashboard Toolbar Figure 1 3 The Dashboard Toolbar Card1 The Elixir Dashboard Designer toolbar is shown in Figure 1 3 The Dashboard Toolbar From left to right the contents are Home This button resets the dashboard to it s initial state That 1s all views are restored to their initial contents an
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