How to create a new dashboard or scorecard in MITS Discover

While MITS has lots of existing dashboards and scorecards to use, there may be times when you want to create your own dashboard or scorecard with custom content. This article will show you the common tasks needed to create one of your own.

Dashboards vs Scorecards

While they are similar, there is an important difference between dashboards and scorecards it is worth mentioning here.

A dashboard is an overall view of a topic while a scorecard is limited to a specific identifier.  So while a dashboard may look at all of a sales rep's customers, a scorecard would be limited to looking at just one customer as a time.

A dashboard is never prompted whereas a scorecard usually is.  The only time a scorecard is not prompted is when a user's security permissions are limited to a single identifier that is also the basis for the scorecard.  For example, if a scorecard is based on Sales Rep and a user is limited by permissions to only seeing their own sales rep data, then the scorecard will display their data without prompting.  The system is smart enough to not prompt the user when only one choice is available.

For the rest of this article, we'll use dashboard to mean both scorecards and dashboards except were specifically noted.

Permissions

Before you can edit an existing dashboard or create a new one, your user account must have permission to write to at least one dashboard library.  See your administrator for assistance with this.

Create a new blank dashboard

On the Dashboards tab, click the New button in the menu and select Full Screen Dashboard.  This will start the wizard.

On the first page of the wizard, you'll can select the number of columns the dashboard will have (2,3, or 4), the hypercube the dashboard will be based on, and whether or not this will be a scorecard.  By default, it is a dashboard. If you want this to be a scorecard, select the identifier to be used as the basis of the scorecard in the dropdown menu.  The available identifiers will be those available within the particular hypercube you selected as the basis above.

On the last page of the wizard, choose a library where you want to save the dashboard, give it a name, and click finish.

Once finished, you'll be presented with the new and empty dashboard.  It will look like this.

Create new sections, objects, and horizontal dividers

Across the top are buttons to create new horizontal lines for visually dividing areas of the dashboard, sections for grouping individual objects that should go together, and dashboard objects.

The option for adding a conditional container is an advanced feature intended for MITS development.  However, you can learn more about it here.

Horizontal Line

The horizontal line button adds a new line that is the width of a single column. You can add as many lines as you'd like.  Each line can be moved by hovering your mouse over it and click dragging it to the new location.  Use the trashcan icon (displayed when hovering over the line) to delete the line from the dashboard.

Section

Clicking the new Section button will prompt you to give the section a name. This field can be left blank if you wish.

This will add a section to your dashboard.  You can add as many sections as you need.  Just like the horizontal line, you can drag and drop the placement of a section as you wish.  If there are any objects within the section , they will be moved with the section.  Both objects and horizontal lines can be placed within a section.

Dashboard Objects

Clicking the Dashboard Object button will start the wizard to add objects to a dashboard.  Your options are:

• Grid
• Cell
• Stoplight
• Time Comparison Grid
• Chart

Each of the options will take you to a different path of the wizard and help you create or select the data for that object.

Grid - A grid object is just another name for a report.  This object lets you select and existing report and put it on the dashboard.  But the report must already exist prior to creating the object.  Options for the object will let you trim and adjust how the report is displayed on the dashboard without changing the base report.

Cell - This displays a single cell (intersection of a drill down path and column). It will always select the lower right cell of the column or report it is using.

Stoplight - These work similar to cell objects, but add a colored circle graphic to the display.  The color of the circle will depend on thresholds set in the configuration of the objet and will change based on how the value in the cell used compares to the thresholds.

Time Comparison Grid - This object packs a lot of information into a small space. With it you can compare the current value of multiple metrics (such as sales, profit, and cost) against those same metrics in certain previous time periods (such as last month or last year).  You can also choose to show the difference and/or trend of the current value against the previous value.  And you can add an additional column of another time period for reference.

Chart - Like reports for grid objects, the chart must first be created on the Reports tab and saved before you can add it to a dashboard.  Selecting this object from the wizard will prompt you to pick an existing chart.

Moving and Editing Objects

All objects on a dashboard can be moved while in the visual edit mode (the default mode when a new dashboard is created).  Hover your mouse over the object then drag and drop the object to its new location.

When hovering over an object, the gear icon will display.  Clicking this icon will grant you access to an object settings and options.

Saving

After you have added objects to your dashboard, you can save it to any library you have write permission to, and you can save it with the same or a new name.  If you are saving it with the same name to the original library location, you'll be prompted to overwrite the existing dashboard.

Viewing

Once you have saved the dashboard, you can view it to see how it displays to a regular user by clicking the View Dashboard button in the menu.

Editing

With the dashboard created, you can continue to edit or come back at a later time and make changes.

Here is a link to another article which will assist you.

If you need to make manual changes to the MWML (underlying code) of the dashboard, we have a reference article here.  This is an advanced task and should only be done by advanced users.