Dashboards, Reporting & Business Intelligence

The following steps are explained to install dashboard on server for MySQL database. The steps are the same for any other database like Oracle, SQL server, MS Access, DB2 etc with few noted exceptions.

• First download InfoCaptor Dashboard Designer on your PC or laptop
• Create your Dashboard and for example, let us name the dashboard file as “my_dashboard.icvâ€? (all InfoCaptor dashboard files have .icv extension)
• Since we are going to place the dashboard files on the server, it is recommended that all the names are lowercase and there are no blanks in the name (replace blanks with underscore ‘_’)
• Let us assume the following

• Your domain is http://www.yourdomain.com
• You will place all the dashboard files in the directory “/dashboardsâ€?
• Your dashboard file is “my_dashboard.icvâ€?
• Your database host is located at “mycompany.server.comâ€? ( This maps to the yellow highlight in the connection window).If the database is on your own PC or machine then you may use “localhostâ€? as shown below
• Your database port is “3306â€? (green highlight)
• Your database name is “testâ€? (blue highlight)
• Your database user name is “some_userâ€?
• Your database password is “some_passwordâ€?

• All dashboards are accessed through a configuration file that will reside on the web-server. This file has a .PHP extension so your web-server should be able to launch PHP files.

• So your final launch URL will be

• http://www.yourdomain.com/dashboards/mysql_dashboard.php

Here are the preparation steps to get the above URL working.

• Get the latest infocaptor_mysql_webstart.jar file (http://www.infocaptor.com/files/infocaptor_mysql_webstart.jar)
• This jar file is different for each database as this jar file is packaged with the appropriate database drivers. If you need to connect multiple databases using the same jar file then a common fat jar file can be created. Please contact us at (contact@infocaptor.com or infocaptor@gmail.com) to get the appropriate jar files.

• copy the file to the http://www.yourdomain.com/dashboards directory
• copy your dashboard definition file “my_dashboard.icvâ€? to the same /dashboards directory
• Now create a new PHP file in any text editor and call the file “mysql_dashboard.phpâ€? or anything that you want.

• Enter the following information in the “mysql_dashboard.phpâ€? as shown in this PDF

• Now save your “mysql_dashboard.phpâ€? and ftp it to your webserver in the /dashboards directory

• Verify that the following files are in the http://www.yourdomain.com/dashboards/ directory

• mysql_dashboard.php
• my_dashboard.icv
• infocaptor_mysql_webstart.jar

Now you can launch your dashboard by typing the following in the browser URL http://www.yourdomain.com/dashboards/mysql_dashboard.php

Please email us if you need assistance in setting up for other databases like Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, MS Access, Sybase, PostgreSQL etc

One of the newest feature in InfoCaptor is the Dashboard Tree as shown below.

This is a powerful dashboard object browser that displays all the portlets in a Tree outline. All the children portlets (drill portlets) are automatically shown as child nodes. This tree browser provides single click refresh to any portlet. You can toggle between Dashboard and Tree view. Dashboard Export is much easier with the Tree browser, just right click on any node and select the export option.

You don’t have to do anything special to create this tree. You simple create tables and graphs on the dashboard as usual. Each portlet (qlet or glet) is automatically added to the Tree structure. There are two pre-defined nodes “Graphs” and “With Filters”. Any new graph is added as a child to the “Graphs” node and any portlet with filters is added to the “With Filters” node. All the drill nodes appear as children to the parent node.

For e.g. If you drill from Portlet A to Portlet B, then B will appear as a child to node “A”.