My First Dashboard

15min dashboard ..

Workshop - My First Dashboard

Building effective dashboards is both an art and a science, requiring the ability to transform complex data into clear, actionable insights through compelling visualizations. In this comprehensive workshop, you'll master the Community Dashboard Editor (CDE), learning how to create professional, interactive dashboards that leverage Pentaho's powerful OLAP capabilities and the flexibility of CTools components. Using the SteelWheels sample dataset, you'll build a complete dashboard from the ground up, gaining hands-on experience with layout design, chart creation, and component configuration that forms the foundation for all enterprise dashboard development.

In this hands-on workshop, you'll experience the complete dashboard development lifecycle, starting with template selection and progressing through layout customization, data connection configuration, and chart component implementation. You'll learn how to work with CDE's three core perspectives - Layout, Components, and Data Sources - to create a cohesive, visually appealing dashboard that presents sales data across multiple dimensions including territory, product line, and time.

As you work through the exercises, you'll master essential techniques for customizing headers and footers with HTML, configuring OLAP connections to Mondrian cubes, and fine-tuning chart properties to create polished, professional visualizations. You'll also gain practical experience with database connectivity, learning how to establish and test JDBC connections that power your dashboard's data queries.

What You'll Accomplish:

• Launch the Community Dashboard Editor and select an appropriate dashboard template

• Customize dashboard layout structure including rows, columns, and panel containers

• Design professional headers and footers with HTML content and corporate branding

• Configure color schemes and styling to create visually consistent dashboards

• Connect to OLAP data sources using the SteelWheels Mondrian schema

• Understand the relationship between OLAP cubes, dimensions, levels, and measures

• Create multiple chart types using the OLAP Chart Wizard (pie, line, and bar charts)

• Configure chart component properties including titles, legends, and dimensions

• Adjust panel heights and alignments for optimal visual presentation

• Establish JDBC database connections for direct SQL query access

• Install and configure JDBC drivers for MariaDB connectivity

• Test and validate database connections through the Pentaho User Console

• Save and publish completed dashboards to the Pentaho repository

• Preview and iterate on dashboard design to achieve professional results

By the end of this workshop, you'll have created a fully functional sales dashboard that demonstrates best practices in dashboard design and CTools development. You'll understand how to structure dashboard layouts for clarity and impact, leverage OLAP schemas for multidimensional analysis, and configure chart components for effective data visualization.

Prerequisites: Pentaho Business Analytics Server with CTools installed, SteelWheels sample data and Mondrian schema configured, MySQL JDBC driver available for download Estimated Time: 30 minutes

My First dashboard

CDE - Layout

Don't worry about all he features & options .. We'll be diving into each perspective in the next set of workshops.

To create a New Dashboard

1. Log in Pentaho Server -> Create New -> CDE Dashboard.

New CDE Dashboard

1. Click on the Template option.

Apply a Template

1. Select: Two x One Template

Apply a Template - Two x One

The resulting Dashboard is composed of:

• 5 main rows

• body row is split into 2 columns

• the first column is split into a further 3 rows

• the first & third rows have columns which hold Panel_1 & Panel_2

• Panel_3 is held in the second column

• further rows define header, footer and spacers

CDE Layout - Two x One

1. Click on 'Save as ..' in the toolbar & enter the following details.

Save as ..

1. Preview the dashboard (eye icon - top right).

Dashboard template - preview

Header & Footer rows

Charts

Final Layout

JDBC Connection