Working with visual dashboards

A Visual dashboard is a type of visual project that presents interactive or persistent data to a wide range of users.

1. Activate a visual dashboard in the workstation editor window. You can activate a visual dashboard in the workstation editor window in one of the following ways:
   • Create a new visual dashboard using the Create New Visual Dashboard wizard.
   • Open an existing visual dashboard.
2. Open the Visual Designer perspective. The Visual Designer perspective presents an editor window and several views and menus that you will use when you work with visual dashboards. You can open the Visual Designer perspective by using either the Open perspective toolbar button or by selecting Window > Open Perspective > Visual Designer.
3. View the key components of the visual dashboard as listed in the Project Explorer view. Each visual dashboard is listed under the Visual Dashboards node in the Project Explorer tree. Each visual dashboard will have the following folders:
   • Connections
   • Globals
   • Queries
   • Scenes
4. Create data source connections.

   Visual dashboards are intended to be shared across the enterprise. In order to facilitate sharing and distributing visual dashboards, QMF for Workstation does not tie the queries that are included in a visual dashboard to a specific data source. Instead, it ties the query to a connection information alias.

   You must set up a connection information alias for each data source used to obtain data for the visual dashboard. For information about setting up a connection information alias, see Specifying data source connections for visual projects.

5. Specify the first query that will supply data for the visual dashboard.

   You can specify an existing query or create a new query. When you specify the query the system prompts you to associate the query with a connection information alias. The connection information alias identifies the data source against which the query runs. For information about setting up queries, see Specifying queries for visual projects.

6. Design the first scene for the dashboard. A visual dashboard consists of one or more scenes.

   A scene is the container (similar to a presentation slide) that will hold all the elements used to display your data. After creating a new visual dashboard, the system provides one default scene. You can choose to have only one scene in your visual dashboard or you can add additional scenes.

7. Insert objects into a scene.

   The objects that you can insert are displayed in the Palette view and are organized on individual palettes based on their type. From the Palette view select the objects that you want to insert into your scenes.

8. Modify the object's properties in the Properties view.

   By modifying an object's properties you set the values that determine how the object looks and behaves. You can use the Expression Designer to help you specify an object's properties.

9. Insert the layout objects

   In a visual dashboard scene layout objects display query results.

   When you insert a layout object the system prompts you to associate the object with a query that is contained in the Queries folder. You can add queries to your Queries folder at any time during the process of creating your dashboard.

   Layout objects can present data in many ways. For most layout objects, you display the results of multiple queries in a single layout. For example, you might create a single XY chart that displays sales figures derived from one query and spending figures derived from another query. You can add multiple layout objects. When you place layout objects, you can pass query result information from a higher level layout object to a lower level layout object. Because you have the ability to pass this information, you can use the placed layout objects to display more detailed information that relates to a specific data value.

10. Use the Events view to assign the different navigation options.

    By assigning navigation options to scenes and objects, you set a path through the dashboard. One form of navigation is to define dependencies between dashboard control objects (such as combo or list box objects) and data-driven layout objects (such as a grid or bar chart object) using the Connectivity tool from the Palette view.

11. Run the visual dashboard.

    Each time that you click the Runtime tab, you are actually running the visual dashboard object. By performing this step you can review how the results will display at run time. Think of this step as a test-run of your dashboard that allows your to improve upon the design before saving and deploying the dashboard.

12. Save the visual dashboard.

    When you have completed designing or editing the visual dashboard, you can save the dashboard and copy it to one or more workspaces for distribution to other users.