GETTING STARTED GUIDE. Birst Express. Exercise 3: Setting up a Dashboard. Write your new Birst Username and Password here. Username: Password:

Setting up a Dashboard

Write your new Birst Username and Password here.

Username:

Password:

Setting up a Dashboard

Business Scenario:

All of your reports are now ready to be inserted into the dashboard! In this exercise, you will create a dashboard for the Operations team.

(Note: In the full version of Birst, you would create a Group for the Operations team in the Admin Module and assign them access to the dashboard in security settings. Security settings are not enabled in Birst Express.)

You will also set up prompts for the reports. Prompts are filters. By setting up prompts in your dashboard, your dashboard end users will be able to filter reports by the prompts you have set up (e.g. by year or product).

Finally, you will set up properties of the dashlets to enable end users to: access the Designer mode and further edit the reports; and to export reports to PDF and Excel files.

Assignment:

• Create a dashboard • Split it into 4 dashlets

• Add 4 reports to the dashboard and custom-size the dashlets • Add prompts to dashboard

• Edit dashlet properties

• Practice filtering your reports using prompts and drilling

• Practice exporting your reports to PDFs and Excel files; editing them via the Designer Module shortcut; and expanding and collapsing your dashlets

2. Click on the “+” tab to create a new dashboard

3. Divide the dashboard into 4 “dashlets”

a. Right-click in the dashboard creation area and select Split horizontal

b. Right-click in the left dashlet and select Split vertical

4. From the “Add Reports” panel at left, drag exercises 1-4 into the dashlets as shown below. These will be in your “Private” folder.

5. You can adjust the size of the dashlets by clicking and dragging the dividing lines (see image below).

6. Add some prompts to your dashboard

a. From the “Add Prompts” panel, drag the Attributes ProductName (Products>ProductName) and Year (Time>Year) into the dark grey area

7. Now enable some editing properties in the Exercise 2 dashlet a. Click the “Edit properties” icon

8. Click Save

9. Edit the properties of other dashlets as desired 10. Click Save to save your dashboard

11. Name your dashboard

12. Practice using the prompts

a. Hover over “Prompts”; select “Alice Mutton” and click Apply

a. Designer: opens the Designer from within the Dashboards Module b. Export to Excel: exports data from report to XLS file

c. Export to PDF: exports data from report to PDF file

d. Expand/close dashlet: clicking this icon will expand a report to take up the entire space of the dashboard (other dashlets will be hidden). Clicking it again will return the view with all dashlets

Your dashboard is complete! It is ready to be shared with your Operations team so they can begin to study the data. Nice job!

About Birst

Birst is the leader in agile business analytics. It offers a single place to manage all of a business’ analytics and agility to answer questions that span departments, data sources, and deployments—across both public or private Clouds. Birst gives users the fastest way to answer their most pressing business questions—and then all the ones they didn’t know to ask. At one-third the cost, time, and staff of traditional big BI, Birst brings the benefits of analytics and fact-based decision-making to a much broader audience. For more information, visit www.birst.com.

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Review - Setting up a Dashboard

In the Dashboards Module, you divided your dashboard into dashlets and dragged in reports from your report catalog in the order you desired. You adjusted the size of your dashlets to fit each of the reports. Next, you added prompts that your dashboard end users would want to use to filter the reports. You also enabled end users to edit reports through a direct link to the Designer Module and you allowed them to export reports to PDF, XLS, CSV or PPT.

Sharing Your Analysis

When using the dashboard you created, end users will be able to drill down on fields that have hyperlinks. They will also be able to filter reports using prompts or by click-and-dragging a box around the desired fields. Once dashboards are saved, they are automatically updated when new data is uploaded and processed. Drilled and filtered dashboards are easy to export from Birst Express in a variety of file formats. Since security settings are not enabled in Birst Express, the newly created dashboard can be viewed via the Dashboards Module of Birst Express.

Congratulations on completing the Birst Express Exercises. Now you are ready to begin exploring and reporting on your own datasets. Visit www.birst.com for more resources to help you get the most out of you Birst Express Edition.

Trademarks

Birst, Inc. and the Birst logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Birst, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. Product specifications and program conditions are subject to change without notice. Copyright 2012 Birst, Inc. All rights reserved.