Creating Dashboards

Dashboards are an integral part of the Report Center functionality as they allow you to tie the components of your Report Center together in a meaningful format for your users. You can embed KPIs, Excel spreadsheets, and reporting services reports on a dashboard page so that the information is provided in context. You can also insert filters that can be used by multiple components on page and configure Excel web services filters to allow users to drill to the information that they need to see.

The dashboard page helps you to create this functionality by suggesting web parts, KPI creation, and layout but these web parts can also be used on other Web Part pages as well.

Creating your dashboard page

To create your dashboard page, follow these steps:

1.	Browse to your Report Center site.
2.	From the Site Actions menu in the top-right corner, select Create Dashboard.
3.	Type the filename and title of your dashboard page in the File Name: and Page Title fields. Type a description of your dashboard page if you want to display descriptive information at the top of your dashboard page.
4.	Select the document library and folder for your dashboard.
5.	In the Create Link in Current Navigation Bar, select whether or not you want a link inserted into the Quick Launch navigation and select the section it will be in from the pull-down menu.
6.	Select your page layout in the Dashboard layout section.
7.	In the Key Performance Indicators section, select whether you want to create a new KPI list, use an existing KPI list, or to not include a KPI list. You can add the KPI to your dashboard later if you decide to include KPIs as part of your dashboard.
8.	Click OK.

Implementing the Report Viewer Web Part

When you installed the SharePoint Add-in for reporting services in the configuration section of this chapter, the Report Viewer Web Part was added to your Web Part gallery. You can use this web part to insert reports on your web part pages and also to connect reports to filter controls on the page. This web part can only be used with reports that are stored/published to a SharePoint library and cannot be used with reports stored on your native reporting services server.

Adding and configuring the Report Viewer Web Part

To insert the Report Viewer Web Part on your web part page, follow these steps:

1.	Open the page on which you want to add the Report Viewer Web Part and select Edit Page from the Site Actions menu in the top-right corner.
2.	Click Add a Web Part in the zone that you want to add the Report Viewer Web Part.
3.	If you are on a dashboard page, expand the All Web Parts section. You do not need to do this on a standard web part page.
4.	Scroll to the Miscellaneous section and select SQL Server Reporting Services Report Viewer and click Add.
5.	From the Edit menu in the Report Viewer Web Part, select Modify Shared Web Part.
6.	In the Report field, type the URL of your report or browse to select your report.
7.	Click Apply.
8.	Click on the right side of the view section to expand.
9.	Select whether you would like a full, navigation, or no toolbar in the Toolbar field. The full toolbar presents the users with the Actions menu so that they can Open, Print, or Export the report, the refresh control, the control to go forward/backward between pages, the ability to zoom in/out and search within the report, as shown in Figure 15.19. The navigation toolbar presents only the control to go forward/backward between pages. Figure 15.19. The Report Viewer Web Part with the full toolbar option [View full size image]
10.	If you have parameters configured for your report, select whether you want the prompt area to be displayed, collapsed, or hidden in the Prompt Area field. The prompt area is where users can enter the parameters and if displayed by default, they can click on it to hide it and if collapsed by default, they can click to expand it. If the prompt area is hidden, the user cannot enter the parameters.
11.	If you have a document map configured for your report, select whether you want the document map to be displayed, collapsed, or hidden in the Document Map field. The document map is a control that allows users to navigate directly to a section or sub-report. If the document area map is hidden, it will not be available for users. If you want to display the document area map, enter the width for it in the Document Area Map Width field.
12.	If your report has parameters, click on the right side of the parameter section and click Load Parameters if they have not been loaded since the report was configured.
13.	Select whether you want to use the default setting for the parameter or override the parameter setting with your own value for each parameter, as shown in Figure 15.20. Figure 15.20. Configuring the report parameters
14.	Click OK and then click Exit Edit Mode.

Connecting the Report Viewer Web Part to a Filter Web Part

Instead of using the report parameter prompts, you may choose to use the filter web parts provided with SharePoint to provide report parameters. This configuration is useful if you want to take advantage of the filter space at the top of the left column on a dashboard page and save the space used for the prompt area and or if you want to configure filter parameters to drive more than one web part when selected.

To configure this functionality, we will first add the web parts to the page and then connect them to the report web part. In the example we use, we will the date filter web parts since the parameters of our report are date driven but this procedure will work for any of the filter web parts that match your parameters. To add the filter web parts to your page, follow these steps:

1.	Open the page on which you want to add the report viewer web part and select Edit Page from the Site Actions menu in the top-right corner.
2.	Select Add a filter from the top of the left column on your dashboard page.
3.	Select the Date filter and click Add. Since we have both a start date and end date for our example, we added this filter twice.
4.	From the Edit menu on the first Date Filter Web Part, select Modify Shared Web Part.
5.	Type the name of the filter field in the Filter Name field and the default value in the Default Value section as shown in Figure 15.21. The default value can be set to no default value, a specific date, or an offset date calculated based on the current date. Figure 15.21. Configuring the Date Filter Web Part
6.	Click OK.

The web part (s) will now appear in the left column and will show a warning that the filter is not connected. To connect the filter web part (s) to your report, follow these steps:

1.	Open the page on which you want to add the connect the filter web part and Report Viewer Web Part and select Edit Page from the Site Actions menu in the top-right corner.
2.	Select Connections Send Filter Values To [Your Report Web Part] from the edit menu of the filter web part, as shown in Figure 15.22. Figure 15.22. Configuring the filter web part connections [View full size image]
3.	Select the filter parameter that you want to connect to from the Configure Connection dialog, as shown in Figure 15.23. Figure 15.23. Select the report parameter to which the filter is connected.
4.	Click Finish and exit Edit Mode.

You can now see the filter web parts on the left side of your dashboard page and if you click Apply Filters, the report will refresh based on your inputted values, as shown in Figure 15.24.

Configuring Excel Web Access Web Parts

In addition to adding reports and filters to your dashboard, you can also configure the Excel Web Access web parts that are on your dashboard page. To configure your Excel Web Access web parts, follow these steps:

1.	Open the page on which you want to add the report viewer web part and select Edit Page from the Site Actions menu in the top-right corner.
2.	From the Edit menu of the Excel Web Access Web Part, select Modify Shared Web Part.
3.	Type the path to a workbook in a trusted file location in the Workbook field.
4.	If you have configured a named item in your workbook, you can type it in the Named Item field.
5.	Type the number of rows and columns that you want to display in the Rows and Columns fields, as shown in Figure 15.25. Figure 15.25. Configuring the Excel Web Access web parts
6.	You can configure whether you will allow sorting, filtering, and any other interactivity in the Navigation and Interactivity section.
7.	Click OK.