Decent Open Source business dashboard system/framework?
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We are looking at setting up a web-based dashboard for our school district. I've had a hard time finding a decent product for our needs and I'm asking for suggestions. We are not against purchasing something but we have had several vendor solutions in the past for various things (not dashboards) that are too closed, not customizable and expensive. With in-house development staff we have no problem customizing solutions and actually prefer the ability to do so. We are looking at possibly developing our own solution but I’d hate to reinvent the wheel if something else is already out there that does a great job. It would be more professional and help us deliver a solution faster. Here are the requirements we have: • Must work on iPads (no Flash, Silverlight, Java, etc) This is a must. All our adman staff have iPads and will be making use of them. The solution must be compatible. • Must allow adding our own data. 90% of our data is in SQL and the other 10% we can get into SQL if that is the only way it takes data. • Should be somewhat usable by office staff if they want to add their own KPIs and charts/graphs. Not really a requirement but it’s something I would expect from any commercial solution. • Must run on Windows server. No Linux solutions please. • Preferably a .Net MVC based solution (C#, VB) but not a requirement. I’m sure there are many good WebForms or PHP ones out there. • Preferably integrates with Active Directory so that we can manage all our user permissions easily and not have separate sign ons for our staff. The dashboard should be "fluid" rather than the static limitations of reporting software like SSRS. What I mean is this. Many dashboards these days allow you to dynamically filter items or click on individual data bars and such to drill down into details. From my experience with SSRS 2005 charts/graphs did not give you the option to click on individual elements. You could create sub-reports that linked to detail reports but creating these were a lengthy manual process and didn’t lend too well to ad-hoc creation or dynamic data records that you may not know you are receiving at run-time. Most of these issues are easily solved in website solutions with programming on the backend and JavaScript on the front end. In these cases my fear is just that SSRS is “too closed” to customization. I’d be happy to be proven wrong if you, or someone else, has great experience with SSRS 2008 and know that some of these features are available. Thank you!
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We are looking at setting up a web-based dashboard for our school district. I've had a hard time finding a decent product for our needs and I'm asking for suggestions. We are not against purchasing something but we have had several vendor solutions in the past for various things (not dashboards) that are too closed, not customizable and expensive. With in-house development staff we have no problem customizing solutions and actually prefer the ability to do so. We are looking at possibly developing our own solution but I’d hate to reinvent the wheel if something else is already out there that does a great job. It would be more professional and help us deliver a solution faster. Here are the requirements we have: • Must work on iPads (no Flash, Silverlight, Java, etc) This is a must. All our adman staff have iPads and will be making use of them. The solution must be compatible. • Must allow adding our own data. 90% of our data is in SQL and the other 10% we can get into SQL if that is the only way it takes data. • Should be somewhat usable by office staff if they want to add their own KPIs and charts/graphs. Not really a requirement but it’s something I would expect from any commercial solution. • Must run on Windows server. No Linux solutions please. • Preferably a .Net MVC based solution (C#, VB) but not a requirement. I’m sure there are many good WebForms or PHP ones out there. • Preferably integrates with Active Directory so that we can manage all our user permissions easily and not have separate sign ons for our staff. The dashboard should be "fluid" rather than the static limitations of reporting software like SSRS. What I mean is this. Many dashboards these days allow you to dynamically filter items or click on individual data bars and such to drill down into details. From my experience with SSRS 2005 charts/graphs did not give you the option to click on individual elements. You could create sub-reports that linked to detail reports but creating these were a lengthy manual process and didn’t lend too well to ad-hoc creation or dynamic data records that you may not know you are receiving at run-time. Most of these issues are easily solved in website solutions with programming on the backend and JavaScript on the front end. In these cases my fear is just that SSRS is “too closed” to customization. I’d be happy to be proven wrong if you, or someone else, has great experience with SSRS 2008 and know that some of these features are available. Thank you!
MattPenner wrote:
Must work on iPads (no Flash, Silverlight, Java, etc) This is a must. All our adman staff have iPads and will be making use of them. The solution must be compatible.
Immediately fire your staff. Herd mentality and being unable to resist blatant consumerism is a poor indicator of their characters. Do you not hire independent thinkers who rebel against the brainwashing of advertising? Apple == Evil
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] Trolls[^]
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We are looking at setting up a web-based dashboard for our school district. I've had a hard time finding a decent product for our needs and I'm asking for suggestions. We are not against purchasing something but we have had several vendor solutions in the past for various things (not dashboards) that are too closed, not customizable and expensive. With in-house development staff we have no problem customizing solutions and actually prefer the ability to do so. We are looking at possibly developing our own solution but I’d hate to reinvent the wheel if something else is already out there that does a great job. It would be more professional and help us deliver a solution faster. Here are the requirements we have: • Must work on iPads (no Flash, Silverlight, Java, etc) This is a must. All our adman staff have iPads and will be making use of them. The solution must be compatible. • Must allow adding our own data. 90% of our data is in SQL and the other 10% we can get into SQL if that is the only way it takes data. • Should be somewhat usable by office staff if they want to add their own KPIs and charts/graphs. Not really a requirement but it’s something I would expect from any commercial solution. • Must run on Windows server. No Linux solutions please. • Preferably a .Net MVC based solution (C#, VB) but not a requirement. I’m sure there are many good WebForms or PHP ones out there. • Preferably integrates with Active Directory so that we can manage all our user permissions easily and not have separate sign ons for our staff. The dashboard should be "fluid" rather than the static limitations of reporting software like SSRS. What I mean is this. Many dashboards these days allow you to dynamically filter items or click on individual data bars and such to drill down into details. From my experience with SSRS 2005 charts/graphs did not give you the option to click on individual elements. You could create sub-reports that linked to detail reports but creating these were a lengthy manual process and didn’t lend too well to ad-hoc creation or dynamic data records that you may not know you are receiving at run-time. Most of these issues are easily solved in website solutions with programming on the backend and JavaScript on the front end. In these cases my fear is just that SSRS is “too closed” to customization. I’d be happy to be proven wrong if you, or someone else, has great experience with SSRS 2008 and know that some of these features are available. Thank you!
This, arguably, is the wrong forum to ask questions of this type. That said, have a look at the offerings of this company http://www.logixml.com/[^]. This is not free, and may not do everything you want, however, this company have a cut-down free version of their reporting tools here http://www.freereporting.com/[^]
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This, arguably, is the wrong forum to ask questions of this type. That said, have a look at the offerings of this company http://www.logixml.com/[^]. This is not free, and may not do everything you want, however, this company have a cut-down free version of their reporting tools here http://www.freereporting.com/[^]
Thanks for the tip Richard, I'll take a look at that site. I was really trying to figure out which forum because it seems that it could fall into several and I didn't want to cross-post. If you can suggest where it should be I'd be happy to move it. Thanks!
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MattPenner wrote:
Must work on iPads (no Flash, Silverlight, Java, etc) This is a must. All our adman staff have iPads and will be making use of them. The solution must be compatible.
Immediately fire your staff. Herd mentality and being unable to resist blatant consumerism is a poor indicator of their characters. Do you not hire independent thinkers who rebel against the brainwashing of advertising? Apple == Evil
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] Trolls[^]