Product How-To: Building a Dashboard Using InetSoft's BI Tools

In this chapter, we will walk through the creation of a simple viewsheet. Every viewsheet is based on a worksheet, and for this example we will use a preinstalled data worksheet called ‘ProductSales’.

The ‘ProductSales’ data worksheet returns customer and order information. It is based on the sample ‘Orders’ database. Our viewsheet will incorporate output and selection components to provide for quick analysis of this sales data.

1. Launch the User Portal by clicking Start → All Programs → Style Intelligence → Style Intelligence Examples.
2. Select the User Portal. Under the Design tab, click the ‘Visual Composer’ link.
3. The Visual Composer opens in a new window. The left-side panels in the Visual Composer are labeled ‘Asset’ and ‘Component’. The ‘Asset’ panel lists all data worksheets and viewsheets. The ‘Component’ panel lists all of the components available to a viewsheet.

4. Click the ‘New Viewsheet’ button. This opens the ‘New Viewsheet’ window.
5. Expand the ‘Global Worksheet’ node and the ‘Tutorial’ folder. Select the ‘ProductSales’ data worksheet and click ‘OK’.
6. In the ‘Component’ pane, expand the ‘ProductSales’ node, then drag the ‘SalesByDate’ data block from the left pane into the grid. This creates a table component and adds the data block’s columns.
7. Expand the ‘SalesByDate’ node to show the list of fields within that data block.
8. Click and drag the ‘State’ field to an empty cell in the grid. This creates a selection list that will let you specify which states’ data you want to display.
9. Now, we want to be able to specify a time period for our output. Drag a ‘Range Slider’ component from the left pane into an empty cell in the grid.
10. Link this Range Slider to the desired field: Click and drag the ‘Date’ field and drop it onto the ‘Range Slider’ component in the grid.
11. You have completed construction of your first viewsheet. Click the ‘Save’ button in to the toolbar, and save the viewsheet under ‘User Viewsheet’ with the name “Sample Viewsheet”.
12. Click the ‘Preview’ button on the main toolbar. This provides a preview of what the user will see in the Portal, and allows you to manipulate the viewsheet as a user would in the Portal.