Step 2, in which you select which reports appear in the dashboard, is shown below:

The options in this step are:

  • A list containing all reports that have not already been selected appears at the left. The reports are organized in the same folders they are in the Reports Explorer; click the + sign in front of a folder to expand it and see the list of reports it contains. Reports that have ask-at-runtime filter conditions are disabled and cannot be selected because dashboards may run unattended and therefore shouldn't prompt the user for any values.

  • A list showing the reports included in the dashboard appears at the right. Reports in this list may be moved up and down to change the order in which they appear in the dashboard; to do this, click the button in front of the report to move and drag the button up or down in the list.

  • Add: clicking this button adds the selected report in the available list to the selected list. You can also add the report by double-clicking it in the available list. The report is removed from the available list.

  • Remove: clicking this button removes the selected report from the selected list. You can also remove the report by double-clicking it in the selected list. The report is added to the available list (although you may not see it if the folder the report is from isn't expanded).

  • Refresh every: a dashboard automatically refreshes the data in its reports at an interval you determine. The default is every 600 seconds (10 minutes) but you can set it between 1 and 6,000 seconds. This interval is also used to display sets of reports; see the note below.

  • Automatic number of columns: if this option is turned on (the default), the dashboard window determines how many columns to display based on the number of reports and the number of rows. For example, if there are six reports and two rows, the dashboard has three columns. Turn this setting off to manually set the number of columns, especially if you want to cycle through sets of reports (see the note below).

  • Rows: the number of rows to display reports in. The maximum value is the number of reports in the dashboard; for example, if you've selected three reports, you can have up to three rows (one per report).

  • Columns: the number of columns to display reports in. The maximum value is the number of reports in the dashboard; for example, if you've selected three reports, you can have up to three columns (one per report). This option is disabled if Automatic number of columns is turned on.

    If the total number of cells (rows multiplied by columns) is less than the number of reports, the reports are cycled through in sets at the specified interval. For example, if you specify two rows and two columns, only four reports can be displayed at a time, so if the dashboard contains six reports, the first four are displayed, then the next two, then the first four again.

  • No message if no records: with this setting turned off, when the dashboard is run and the filter for a report causes no records to be retrieved, a warning message is displayed. Turn on this setting on to not display the warning.

  • Create shortcut: turn this option on, which it is by default, to create a shortcut on your desktop that runs the dashboard. To run the dashboard, simply double-click the shortcut; you don't need to start Student Manager Reports first and the normal Student Manager Reports user interface doesn't appear.

  • Require login: turn this option on if you want to prompt the user to log in when they run the dashboard from a shortcut. With this option turned off, the dashboard runs without login. This option is only enabled if Create shortcut is turned on.


© ACEware Systems, Inc., 2021 • Updated: 01/24/18
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