Ctrlk
For the complete documentation index, see llms.txt. This page is also available as Markdown.

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

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

Let's start with the Header & Footer rows..

Header Row

  1. Expand the Header row until you reach the HTML Property.

  2. Click on the ... and edit the HTML - we're going to enter some padding to align the text.

  1. Click on the Preview icon - last one in toolbar.

Preview dashboard

Footer

  1. Create a folder: /resources/img

  2. Upload: logo_pentaho.png

  3. Expand the Footer row until you reach the HTML property.

  4. Edit the HTML

  1. Change the Footer column color to match the logo.

Dont forget to click on the color wheel ..

Color picker

  1. Save & Preview the dashboard.

Dashboard Layout - Header & Footer

Bit of background info ..

Schema WorkBench is a Pentaho Design Tool used to define a multidimensional MDX schema.

• Cube - is the FACT table in a STAR schema.

• Dimensions - map to the database tables.

• Levels - map to the database columns in the table. The order defines the 'paths' you can take to 'slice& dice' the data.

SteelWheelsSales OLAP Schema

If you need to 'slice & dice' your data, then you will have spent many hours in Schema Workbench, defining your OLAP reporting cubes.

CTools - OLAP Chart Wizard - can leverage the schema.xml that connects to the underlying sampledata database tables.

You can test MDX queries against your cubes..

MDX Query

Add a Chart

  1. Select: Connection Perspective.

Connection Perspective

  1. Click on OLAP Chart Wizard & enter the following details:

Pie Chart - Total Sales
Property
Value

Name

Total_Sales

Html Object

Panel_3

Catalog

SteelWheels

Cube

SteelWheelsSales

Dimensions

Territory

Measures

Sales

  1. Click OK.

  2. Save & Preview dashboard.

Panel_3 - Total sales

Looks like we made need to apply a few tweaks to align and so on ..

Let's add our other Charts and then take a look at the Chart Components.

  1. Again .. Click on the OLAP Chart Wizard & enter the following details:

Line Chart - Line sales
Setting
Value

Name

Line_Sales

Html Object

Panel_1

Catalog

SteelWheels

Cube

SteelWheelsSales

Dimensions

Line

Measures

Sales

  1. Click OK.

  2. Save.

  3. Again .. Click on the OLAP Chart Wizard & enter the following details:

Property
Value

Name

Years_Sales

Html Object

Years_Sales

Catalog

SteelWhels

Cube

SteelWheelsSales

Dimensions

Years

Measures

Sales

  1. Save and Render.

My First Dashboard

These components are configured with a set of Properties.

Chart Component

  1. Click on the Components option in the toolbar.

Chart Components

As you can see .. the Wizard has automatically added 3 Chart components with their associated properties.

  1. Highlight the CCC Pie Chart Component.

  2. Edit the following property values:

Property
Value

Title

Total Sales

Height

400

  1. Highlight the CCC Line Chart Component.

  2. Edit the following property values:

Property
Value

Title

Product Line Sales

Legend

False

  1. Highlight the CCC Bar Chart Component.

Property
Value

Title

Yearly Sales

Legend

False

  1. Again Save & Preview the dashboard.

Unless you have previously created the Charts, you will need to make some adjustments to the Layout.

  1. Click on the Layout option and enter the following details:

Layout Structure
Property
Value

Row 3 Body

Height

720

Column 1-1 Row 1

Height

360

Column Panel_1

Height

355

Row 3-3

Height

360

Column 1-2 Panel_2

Height

355

Column 2 Panel_3

Height

725

Text Align

Center

The Steel Wheels Inc sampledata dataset resides on a MariaDB.

Based on the ER diagram, we can build our SQL Query, restricting to YR 2004.

ER - sampledata

  1. Download the MariaDB JDBC driver.

LogoDbSchema Supported Databases — ER Diagrams & Schema Design for 100+ EnginesDbSchema
Download MariaDB JDBC driver

  1. Stop the Pentaho Server

  1. Copy the driver to the ~/opt/pentaho/server/pentaho-server/tomcat/lib/ directory.

  1. Restart the Pentaho Server.

  1. Once logged in select: Manage Data Sources.

  2. Click on the Cog wheel and from the drop-down menu, select: New Connection

New Connection

  1. Enter your connection details in the selected database panel.

Database connection - SampleData

  1. Test the database connection.

If connecting to a Mondrian schema, ensure the connection name is the same as the schema connection name.

PreviousFirst Steps
NextCommunity Data Access

Last updated

Was this helpful?