My dashboards

Service Manager displays all reports as objects in the Dashboard view. You can group reports to create a dashboard that offers a quick view of an entire system’s performance data.

Dashboards provide dynamic reports in the web client which enable you to perform the following actions:

• Re-size, relocate, or remove the report

• Hover the mouse pointer to view data counts

  Pause the mouse pointer on the area of interest in a chart. For example, you can pause the mouse pointer on a pie chart to display a popup window that indicates the number of records that a slice of the pie represents.

• Refresh the dashboard to get updated reports based on database changes

• Drill down to a subset of the records, in order to display those records in greater detail

Create a dashboard

A dashboard enables you to view multiple reports about data in your system.

To create a dashboard, follow these steps:

1. In the System Navigator pane, select Reporting > Create New Dashboard.

   The New Dashboard button is also available on the Search Dashboard page and any dashboard view pages.

2. In the New Dashboard window, complete the necessary Dashboard properties.
3. Click Save. A unique dashboard ID is automatically assigned to this dashboard and displayed in the Dashboard ID field.
4. (Optional) Click Dashboard Content below the dashboard ID to open the dashboard and manage the dashboard contents. For more information about how to add reports to a dashboard, see Add reports to a dashboard.

Dashboard properties

The following fields and tabs are available both for defining a new report in the New Dashboard page and for editing an existing report in the Search Dashboard result page.

Fields and tabs	Description
Name ( *)	Type a word or phrase that is a unique identifier for this dashboard. It should be a value that makes it easy to understand the purpose of the dashboard.
Description	Enter a description for the dashboard. It is helpful for other users to understand the purpose and objectives of this dashboard. The description is displayed in the dashboard properties in the right panel of the Reports page when that report is displayed.
Dashboard ID	The dashboard ID is automatically assigned to the dashboard and displayed in the Dashboard ID field after you save your dashboard. The Dashboard Content button is enabled at the same time for you to manage contents in the dashboard, such as adding or removing reports, dragging and dropping reports, or re-sizing reports. For more information about how to add reports to a dashboard, see Add reports to a dashboard.
Permission	The default owner is the current operator. You can change the owner and set the audience of this dashboard. Note You need to have the privilege to change the permission. Report Manager can share the dashboard to others. Only the Report administrator can change the dashboard owner.

Add reports to a dashboard

A dashboard enables you to view multiple reports about data in your system.

1. Open the dashboard you want to modify.

2. Click Add Content. A floating window is displayed to show the categories and the reports.

   There are several ways to filter the displayed reports. You can select different report categories or chart types, and sort the results by name or update time. You can also search a report by report ID, or report name, which is always case insensitive.

   Note The system does not display Hot Topic Map in the chart type drop-down list. However, you can search for a Hot Topic Map report by its report name or report ID, and then add this report to the dashboard.

   Alternatively, if there is already a default dashboard, you can create a new report and add it directly to the dashboard. For more information, see Create a report.

3. Click the plus ("+") button beside a report to add this report to the dashboard. The button changes to Ö after this report is added to the dashboard. By default, you can add up to eight reports to a dashboard. You can change the default value of Max reports per dashboard from Reporting > Administration > Report Settings.
4. Click Close when you finished adding the reports.

Service Manager saves the modified dashboard automatically.

Update a dashboard

Service Manager provides you with UI elements with which you can easily update the dashboard view. The following table describes the UI elements in a dashboard.

For the options on individual report, see Update a report in a dashboard.

UI Element	Description
	Creates a new dashboard.
	Saves the current dashboard as a new dashboard.
	Adds reports to the dashboard. It displays a report list and you can find, select, and add any report to the dashboard directly.
	Selects the dashboard view from the drop-down list. This list content is not automatically refreshed when you click the drop down button. Therefore, you need to click the refresh button before you can get the latest list of the dashboards you can view.
	Sets the dashboard view you have selected as the home page.
	Refreshes the dashboard. The dashboard reads the data from the database.
	Exports the dashboard as a PDF file. You can change the name of the exported file and select the orientation as portrait or landscape.
	Opens the dashboard definition page, which enables you to modify the dashboard properties.
	Prints the current dashboard.
	Add the current dashboard to Favorites.

Enable automatic refresh for a dashboard

Only when your report administrator has enabled the Auto Refresh functionality for dashboards in the front end, you have the option to enable automatic refresh for a specific dashboard so that the dashboard owner and audience can view up-to-date data in the dashboard.

To enable automatic refresh for a dashboard, follow these steps:

1. Go to Reporting > Search Dashboard to open the dashboard.

2. Select the Support Auto Refresh check box on the right side.

   Note If your report administrator has disabled automatic refresh for all dashboards, this check box is hidden.

   The Refresh Interval field is then displayed.

3. In the Refresh Interval field, select an interval from the list. For example, select Recurs every 2 minutes.

   Tip Follow these steps to add more intervals to the list:

   1. Click Tailoring > Tailoring Tools > Global Lists.
   2. Search for the Reporting Dashboard Refresh Interval global list, and then append more values to the Value List field, the Display List field, and the SM message List field, respectively.
   3. Save your changes.

   4. Add the corresponding new messages to the scmessage table.

4. Click Save.

   Now, automatic refresh is enabled for the dashboard owner. To enable automatic refresh for the dashboard audience, your system administrator must select the Enable dashboard auto refresh for audience option. For more information, see Configure report settings.