Sas IMPLEMENTING DASHBOARD SAMPLES User Manual

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Implementing Dashboard

Samples With SAS

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Implementing Dashboard Samples with SAS

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Contents

Chapter 1

What are Dashboards? 1 Creating Dashboards with SAS/GRAPH Software Sample Dashboards Delivering Dashboards to Users References

Chapter 2

Downloading The Dashboard Samples Working With the Sample Code See Also

Chapter 3

Prerequisites for This Chapter How to Register a New Stored Process

Chapter 4

Prerequisites for This Chapter Overview: Displaying Dashboards in SAS Web Report Studio Display the Output of a Single Indicator Creating a Report That Displays the Output of One or More Indicators Display the Output of a Complete Dashboard from a Single Stored Process Refreshing the Data Printing Indicators and Dashboards

Introduction to SAS/GRAPH Dashboard Samples 1

Downloading and Modifying The Dashboard Samples 5

Registering a New Stored Process 9

Displaying Dashboards in SAS Web Report Studio 13

Chapter 5

Prerequisites for This Chapter Overview: Displaying Dashboards in the SAS Information Delivery Portal Display a Dashboard in a WebDAV Content Portlet

Chapter 6

Prerequisites for This Chapter Overview: Displaying Dashboards in the SAS Stored Processes Web Application Display a Dashboard or Indicator 36 Navigate the SAS Stored Process Web Application 37 Modify the Execution Options for a Stored Process 39 References 40

Displaying Dashboards in the SAS Information Delivery Portal 27

Displaying Dashboards in the SAS Stored Process Web Application 35

Index 41

CHAPTER

Introduction to SAS/GRAPH Dashboard Samples

What are Dashboards? Creating Dashboards with SAS/GRAPH Software Sample Dashboards Delivering Dashboards to Users References

What are Dashboards?

A dashboard is a data visualization application that consolidates important performance information and delivers it to decision-makers as a collection of concise indicators. Like the gauges and warning lights on an automobile dashboard, the following dashboard (Few 2006) enables the manager of a telephone sales organization to monitor the performance of the team at a glance:

2 Creating Dashboards with SAS/GRAPH Software

The display of an individual dashboard indicator can include both graphics and text.

The term indicator refers not only to the visual representation but also to the underlying data source, range information, target values, and so forth. A collection of indicators presented together comprises a dashboard.

Chapter 1

Creating Dashboards with SAS/GRAPH Software

The keys to creating effective dashboards are to have the appropriate performance

data available and to choose the appropriate indicators that convey each corresponding performance measure. SAS software is a powerful tool for designing and constructing dashboards because it provides tools for managing, analyzing, and summarizing data as well as for presenting the results.

SAS/GRAPH software provides the ﬂexibility to create virtually any type of chart or

plot required for a dashboard indicator. In addition to the graph types that can be generated with its built-in procedures, SAS/GRAPH software provides an Annotate facility that enables creative programmers to customize the standard graph types or to create entirely new graph types that are not provided by the built-in procedures. Once you have assembled the desired collection of indicators, you can use the GREPLAY procedure in SAS/GRAPH software to arrange the indicators in any layout that you desire.

Sample Dashboards

The SAS Customer Support Center Web site includes sample code that illustrates

some of the types of dashboard indicators and dashboards that you can create using SAS/GRAPH software in conjunction with other SAS software. You can ﬁnd these samples at

http://support.sas.com/rnd/datavisualization/dashboards.

Some of the dashboard samples are built from multiple instances of a single type of

indicator:

slider chart indicator

shows a key value as a pointer on a bar that shows qualitative ranges. The pointer

can be highlighted to indicate items that need immediate attention. The sample

dashboard with slider chart indicators shows various measures of the performance

of an information technology department compared against ranges that represent

expected performance standards. bullet graph indicator (Few 2006)

shows a key value as a bar against a background that shows qualitative ranges,

combined with a symbol that represents a target value. The sample dashboard

with bullet graph indicators shows various measures of the performance of a

business compared against ranges that represent expected performance standards

as well as against speciﬁc performance targets. dial gauge indicator

shows a key value as pointer on a circular scale that represents a qualitative

range. The sample dashboard with dial meter indicators illustrates some of the

types of measures that are appropriate for representation with this indicator, such

as temperature and revolutions per minute. bar chart indicator (with target marker)

Delivering Dashboards to Users 3

shows a related group of key values as bars, along with symbols that represent target values. The color of each bar represents a qualitative measure of the corresponding value. In addition, pointers on each bar represent the target value for the measure. The sample dashboard with bar chart indicators shows various measures of the sales performance of a wine distributor compared against ranges that represent expected performance standards as well as against speciﬁc performance targets.

Note: This sample won an award for best depiction of data in a dashboard in

the 2005 Data Visualization Contest sponsored by DM Review magazine.

In addition to the samples that feature speciﬁc indicators, the following samples are available that illustrate more complex dashboards that include multiple types of indicators:

Telesales performance

shows indicators that monitor the real-time performance of a telephone sales team or similar organization. The following measures are shown on the dashboard:

call wait time

call duration

abandoned calls

call volume

order volume

sales representative utilization

Note: This dashboard is an implementation of the example that originally

appeared on page 199 of Information Dashboard Design (Stephen Few 2006).

Web marketing analysis

shows indicators that support the analysis of customer data for an online merchant or similar organization. The following measures are shown on the dashboard:

number of visitors (daily, monthly, and yearly)

number of registered visitors

number of orders of top-selling products

number of times top-selling products were viewed

products purchased together but not displayed together

products displayed together but not purchased together

other Web sites that provided referrals

Note: This dashboard is an implementation of the example that originally

appeared on page 201 of Information Dashboard Design (Stephen Few 2006).

Delivering Dashboards to Users

In order to be useful, dashboards must be readily available to the decision-makers who rely on the information that they present. You have a wide variety of options for delivering the dashboard indicators or complete dashboards that you create with SAS/GRAPH software, including the following:

You can store the indicators and dashboards that you create with SAS/GRAPH programs in standard graphics ﬁle formats so that they can be consumed by other applications.

4 References

Chapter 1

You can use the Output Delivery System (ODS) features in SAS/GRAPH software

to package the dashboards into HTML pages that can be sent to a Web server and

viewed with a browser. ODS HTML output also supports adding chart tips and

drill-down links on individual bars and other graphic elements in the indicators.

All of the SAS/GRAPH dashboard samples on the SAS Customer Support Center

Web site are designed to generate ODS HTML output.

You can use SAS Web Report Studio software to deliver dashboards in the form of

Web-based reports. For information on using SAS Web Report Studio software to

create dashboards from the sample indicators or to display the sample dashboards,

see Chapter 4, “Displaying Dashboards in SAS Web Report Studio,” on page 13.

You can use SAS Information Delivery Portal software with Base SAS 9.1.3

Service Pack 4 or later to deliver dashboards as portlets within the framework of a

corporate Web portal. For information on using SAS Information Delivery Portal

software to display the sample dashboards, see Chapter 5, “Displaying Dashboards

in the SAS Information Delivery Portal,” on page 27.

You can use the SAS Stored Process Web Application with Base SAS 9.1.3 Service

Pack 4 or later to provide users with online access to dashboards that are

generated by SAS/GRAPH code in stored processes. For information about using

the SAS Stored Process Web Application to display the sample dashboards, see

Chapter 6, “Displaying Dashboards in the SAS Stored Process Web Application,”

on page 35.

References

Few, Stephen. 2006. Information Dashboard Design. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media,

Inc.

CHAPTER

Downloading and Modifying The Dashboard Samples

Downloading The Dashboard Samples Working With the Sample Code

Using Macro Variables to Customize Indicator and Dashboard Features Modifying the Data for Indicators Using the Annotate Facility to Add Information to Indicators Using the GREPLAY Procedure to Position Indicators on the Dashboard 6 Customizing Drill-down Information for Dashboard Indicators

See Also

Note: The default drill-down page, speciﬁed in the

hardcoded_drilldown

macro variable assignment that can be found in the beginning section of each sample, is on the SAS Customer Support Center Web site. If you do not have Internet access, you should change that variable to point to an HTML ﬁle that is accessible at your location.

For more information on the features of SAS/GRAPH software used in the dashboard samples, see SAS/GRAPH Reference, which is available from the Documentation section of the SAS Customer Support Center Web site.

CHAPTER

Registering a New Stored Process

Prerequisites for This Chapter How to Register a New Stored Process

Prerequisites for This Chapter

The information in this chapter makes the following assumptions:

SAS Management Console and SAS Foundation Services, including BI Manager, have been installed at your site.

The stored process code for the dashboards and indicators has been downloaded, and the code has been saved in the source code repository on the SAS Stored Process Server at your site. See Chapter 2, “Downloading and Modifying The Dashboard Samples,” on page 5 for more information about how to download the code.

You have write metadata permission for the metadata repository so that you can register stored processes.

You have access to and know the location of the stored processes that you are registering.

How to Register a New Stored Process

Before you can use a stored process, you must ﬁrst register the metadata for the stored process. The following steps describe how to register stored processes within the context of these sample dashboards and indicators.

Note: Before you can register a stored process, a server must be deﬁned for the stored process to run on. For these examples, you need to use a SAS Stored Process Server. You can use the Server Manager to deﬁne a stored process server. For more information about how to deﬁne a server, see the Help for the Server Manager.

To register a new stored process:

1 From the SAS Management Console navigation tree, select the folder under BI

Manager in which you would like to create the new stored process.

Note: For SAS Web Report Studio, the stored process must be registered in the foundation repository that will contain the reports that use the stored process. Within that repository, the stored process must be registered in the

ReportStudio/

To create a new folder under BI Manager, navigate to where you want to put the new folder. Select Actions

folder structure.

New Folder. The New Folder Wizard appears.

BIP Tree/

10 How to Register a New Stored Process

Complete the wizard, and then navigate to the new folder before you proceed to the next step.

Select ActionsINew Stored Process. The New Stored Process wizard appears.

In the New Stored Process Wizard:

Enter a name for the stored process. Slashes, backslashes, and control

characters cannot be used in this ﬁeld. Stored process names are limited to

60 characters, and must be unique within a folder. In this case, uniqueness is

deﬁned to be case-insensitive.

Enter a description for the stored process. The description can contain up to

200 characters. This step is optional.

Display 3.1 New Stored Process Wizard —Name Speciﬁcation

Chapter 3

c Click Next. d Select a SAS Stored Process Server from the list. e Select a source code repository from the list. A source code repository is a

location on the application server that contains stored process source code.

For more information about the source code repository, see the BI Manager

Help.

f Enter the name of the source code ﬁle for the stored process. g Select the type of output from the list. For these examples, specify

Streaming as the stored process result type.

Registering a New Stored Process

Display 3.2 New Stored Process Wizard —Execution Details

How to Register a New Stored Process 11

h Click Next.

i Click

Finish to register the new stored process.

Note: After you have registered the stored process, use the Stored Process Properties dialog box to control access to the stored process. For more information, see the BI Manager Help.

CHAPTER

Displaying Dashboards in SAS Web Report Studio

Prerequisites for This Chapter Overview: Displaying Dashboards in SAS Web Report Studio Display the Output of a Single Indicator Creating a Report That Displays the Output of One or More Indicators

Create a Report from an Open Indicator Using Multiple Indicators to Create a Simple Dashboard Report 16

About the Example Step 1: Insert the Indicators into the Report Layout Step 2: Assign an Indicator to Each Placeholder Object Step 3: Save Your Work Step 4: Add a Header Step 5: Beneath Each Indicator, Insert Text with Hyperlinks Step 6: Insert a Footer 23 Step 7: Save Your Work 23

Step 8: View the Dashboard Report 23 Display the Output of a Complete Dashboard from a Single Stored Process 24 Refreshing the Data 25 Printing Indicators and Dashboards 25

Prerequisites for This Chapter

This chapter uses examples to explain how to perform the following tasks in SAS

Web Report Studio:

Select a stored process to view output for a single indicator.

Save a displayed indicator as part of a report.

Use multiple indicators to construct a simple dashboard report.

Select a stored process to view a dashboard that contains multiple indicators.

Print indicator and dashboard output.

Note: The examples in this chapter are based on SAS Web Report Studio 3.1. However, you can use any version of SAS Web Report Studio to display the dashboards.

If you want to complete the tasks by using your own indicators and dashboards, you must meet the following requirements:

All necessary components of the SAS Intelligence Platform are installed and conﬁgured at your site. The components must include the SAS Stored Process Server. This server generates the output for the indicators and dashboards, which are SAS Stored Processes.

14 Overview: Displaying Dashboards in SAS Web Report Studio

The stored processes that you want to use have been registered in SAS metadata

as explained in Chapter 3, “Registering a New Stored Process,” on page 9.

You have logged on to SAS Web Report Studio with a user ID that has permission

to create reports.

You are familiar with using the SAS Web Report Studio application.

Chapter 4

Note: For more information about any of the tasks in this chapter, select Help

Contents from within SAS Web Report Studio.

Overview: Displaying Dashboards in SAS Web Report Studio

SAS Web Report Studio enables you to display the output of SAS Stored Processes. A

single stored process might produce output for an individual indicator or it might produce a complete dashboard of indicators.

You can also combine individual indicators to create a dashboard report that includes

visual elements that are available in SAS Web Report Studio, such as headers, footers, and text.

Display the Output of a Single Indicator

This example shows you how to view output from a single indicator simply by

selecting the stored process name from the Open dialog box in SAS Web Report Studio.

1 Select Report

In this example, the Slider Chart Indicator is stored with other indicators in a

folder named StoredProcesses.

Note: The name of the example folder does not imply that the folder must contain

only stored processes. A folder in SAS Web Report Studio can contain both stored

processes and reports. Stored processes are identiﬁed by this icon:

Open and navigate to the location where the indicator is stored.

Display 4.1 Open Dialog Box Showing the Contents of the StoredProcesses Folder

Note: You can also use the Report Management page to select the indicator

Create a Report from an Open Indicator 15

2 Select the name of the indicator. For example, select Slider Chart Indicator

This sample indicator shows three ranges of data and a triangular marker that points to the actual data value.

Display 4.2 Output for the Slider Chart Indicator Shown in the View Report View

3 (Optional) To view a SAS log for the indicator, select Help

When you open an indicator by using the method described in this topic, the data is automatically refreshed. You can alsonot modify content.

However, when an indicator is saved as part of a report section, you can add visual elements such as headers, footers, images, and text that are independent of the indicator. You can also save the report so that the data in the report is manually refreshed.

For more information, see “Creating a Report That Displays the Output of One or More Indicators” on page 15.

View Log.

Creating a Report That Displays the Output of One or More Indicators

Create a Report from an Open Indicator

One way to include an indicator as part of a SAS Web Report Studio report is to select Report Report view (as shown in Display 4.2 on page 15). For a new report, either menu selection opens the Save As dialog box.

Note: You can also save from the Edit Report view (which is discussed in “Step 1: Insert the Indicators into the Report Layout” on page 17).

Save or ReportISave As when the output is displayed in the View

16 Using Multiple Indicators to Create a Simple Dashboard Report

In the Save As dialog box, you name the new report, provide an optional description,

navigate to a storage location, and select options such as the report from automatically displaying the most recent data, you can select

be manually refreshed

Display 4.3 A New, Manually Refreshed, Read-Only Indicator Report Named ’IT Expenses’

from the

Chapter 4

Type drop-down list.

Make read-only

. To prevent

Data can

The Slider Chart Indicator stored process continues to exist in addition to the newly

saved report named IT Expenses.

For information about how to save multiple indicators in a report, see “Using

Multiple Indicators to Create a Simple Dashboard Report” on page 16.

Using Multiple Indicators to Create a Simple Dashboard Report

About the Example

The topics in this section explain how to combine multiple indicators to create a

simple dashboard such as the one shown in Display 4.4 on page 17. The example uses three indicators that are based on the Bar Chart Indicator from the samples library. They are the Sales Revenue Indicator, the Proﬁt Indicator, and the Market Share Indicator. Besides output from the three indicators, the report contains the following features:

A header with a company logo, static text, the report description as dynamic text,

and a dividing line between the header and the main report content.

Text beneath each indicator that includes a link to another report that contains

more details about the information in the associated indicator.

Using Multiple Indicators to Create a Simple Dashboard Report 17

A footer that contains a conﬁdentiality message and a link to the corporate Web page for more information about company policy.

Display 4.4 A Simple Dashboard Report That Contains Output from Multiple Indicators

To begin creating this example, see “Step 1: Insert the Indicators into the Report Layout” on page 17.

Step 1: Insert the Indicators into the Report Layout

In “Create a Report from an Open Indicator” on page 15, you learned how to save a displayed indicator as part of a report. Another way to create reports that include indicators is to use the tools in SAS Web Report Studio’s Edit Report view. When you use the Edit Report view, your report can contain multiple indicators.

1 Select Report

New to access the Edit Report view.

18 Using Multiple Indicators to Create a Simple Dashboard Report

Display 4.5 The Edit Report View as It Appears Before Content Has Been Added or Deﬁned

Chapter 4

2 By default, the body grid has two columns, but, in this example, the three

indicators are side-by-side at the top of the report. To insert a third column on the

right, click

3 Click

(located on the vertical toolbar).

(located on the horizontal toolbar) three times to insert placeholder

objects into the ﬁrst three cells in the top row of the body grid.

Using Multiple Indicators to Create a Simple Dashboard Report 19

Display 4.6 The Layout with the Three Empty Placeholder Objects

Note: You can also click and drag the tool into each cell to insert a placeholder object for a stored process.

Step 2: Assign an Indicator to Each Placeholder Object

To assign an indicator to a placeholder object, complete the following steps:

On the toolbar for the ﬁrst placeholder object, click

Stored Process

2 Navigate to the folder that contains the indicator that you want to insert.

Select the indicator, and then click

to open the Insert a Stored Process dialog box.

OK. In this example, the Sales Revenue

Indicator is in the ﬁrst cell.

4 Repeat steps 1 to 3 in order to select the second and third indicators. In this

example, the Proﬁt Indicator is in the second cell and the Market Share Indicator is in the third cell.

, and then select Edit

20 Using Multiple Indicators to Create a Simple Dashboard Report

Display 4.7 The Layout with the Three Indicators Selected

Chapter 4

Step 3: Save Your Work

Before continuing, save the report.

1 Select Report

Note: Because this is a new report, Report

box.

2 Name the report. In this example, the report is named 2005 Sales Dashboard. 3 Type a description. This sample report has the following description:

This dashboard uses three bar charts with triangular markers to

graphically present three indicators for 2005 sales: revenue,

profit, and market share

4 Click OK.

Save to open the Save As dialog box.

Save opens the Save As dialog

Note: When creating a report, save your work frequently, especially after making

changes that require you to complete multiple steps.

Step 4: Add a Header

A header can contain one or more of the following elements: a banner image, static

text, hyperlinks, dynamic text, and a dividing line. In this example, the header includes a banner image, both static and dynamic text, and a dividing line.

1 Click Header to open the Edit Header dialog box. 2 If images are available at your site, you can select one from the Banner drop-down

list. (Banner images are not available by default.) In this example, the header

contains an image named

3 In the text box, enter the static text, insert dynamic text for the report description,

and use the formatting tools until the text appears the way you want it to. The

text for this example is shown in Display 4.8 on page 21.

orionstarHeader.

Note: To insert the dynamic text, select

drop-down list and then click Insert.

text

Report Description from the Dynamic

Using Multiple Indicators to Create a Simple Dashboard Report 21

4 Select the option to insert a horizontal line between the header and the report

content.

Display 4.8 This Header Contains a Banner Image, Static and Dynamic Text, and a Horizontal Line

5 Click OK.

Note: When the report is rendered, SAS Web Report Studio replaces with the text that was entered in the

Description ﬁeld in the Save As dialog box (see

“Step 3: Save Your Work” on page 20). If you change the description, the changes are automatically included in the report the next time it is rendered. SAS Web Report Studio has a variety of dynamic text options such as report author, report name, and last saved date.

Step 5: Beneath Each Indicator, Insert Text with Hyperlinks

The sample dashboard includes text beneath each indicator. Each block of text includes a link to another report that contains more detail about the associated indicator.

Note: You must create the detailed report before you can create a link to it in SAS Web Report Studio.

Click bottom row of the body grid.

Note: You can also click and drag the object for text.

2 On the toolbar for the ﬁrst placeholder, click , and then select Edit Text to

open the Edit Text dialog box.

3 In the text box, type the text for the ﬁrst indicator, and accept the default

formatting. The text for the Sales Revenue Indicator is shown in Display 4.9 on page 22.

three times to insert placeholder objects into the last three cells in the

tool into each cell to insert a placeholder

22 Using Multiple Indicators to Create a Simple Dashboard Report

4 To link to the detailed report, select the text that you want users to click on. In

Display 4.9 on page 22, the text

for the link.

Display 4.9 Text for the Sales Revenue Indicator

Chapter 4

Sales by Region and Representative

is used

5 Click

to open the Report Linking dialog box, and then complete the following

steps.

a Select the

Make text a link

option to enable the rest of the items in the

dialog box.

Select the target report, and then click

Display 4.10 The Target Report That Contains Details for the Sales Revenue Indicator Is Selected

OK to return to the Edit Text dialog box.

Using Multiple Indicators to Create a Simple Dashboard Report 23

6 Click OK.

Repeat steps 2 through 6 in order to create the text and the links for the other two indicators. In this example, the text for the Proﬁt Indicator links to the Proﬁt by Subsidiary report, and the text for the Market Share Indicator links to the Market Share by Product and Region report.

Step 6: Insert a Footer

Like headers, a footer can contain a banner image, static text, hyperlinks, dynamic text, and a dividing line. In this example, the footer includes text, a hyperlink to a company Web page, and a dividing line.

1 Click

3 Select the option to insert a horizontal line between the footer and the report

Display 4.11 The Footer with a Hyperlink to the Company’s Internal Web Page

Footer

to open the Edit Footer dialog box.

In the text box, enter the static text. In this example, the company Web page address is typed in the form

www.abccorp.internal.com. SAS Web Report

Studio automatically converts the address to a hyperlink.

content.

4 Click OK.

Step 7: Save Your Work

Select ReportISave to save the ﬁnal report.

Because the report has already been saved, the Save As dialog box does not appear again.

Note: You also could click

View Report to preview the report before saving.

Step 8: View the Dashboard Report

To view the report, click View Report.

24 Display the Output of a Complete Dashboard from a Single Stored Process

Chapter 4

Display the Output of a Complete Dashboard from a Single Stored Process

One stored process can also produce a complete dashboard of indicators. The

dashboard shown in Display 4.12 on page 24 includes output from 17 bar chart indicators. (Three of these indicators were used to create the simple dashboard shown in Display 4.4 on page 17.)

Select ReportIOpen and navigate to the location where the dashboard is stored.

2 Select the name of the dashboard. For example, select

Display 4.12 A Complete Dashboard Produced from a Single Stored Process

Bar Chart Dashboard

As explained in “Step 5: Beneath Each Indicator, Insert Text with Hyperlinks” on

page 21, you could create a text link from this dashboard to another SAS Web Report Studio report or to a Web page. For example, you could link to a URL address such as the one described in “Display a Dashboard or Indicator” on page 36. This link could take users to a version of the same dashboard that enables them to drill down to more detailed data.

Note: Before you can create a text link, you must save the dashboard as a SAS Web

Report Studio report (for more information about saving, see “Step 3: Save Your Work” on page 20).

Refreshing the Data

The data displayed by the indicators on a dashboard are refreshed as follows:

If a stored process in the STP Web Application is used to display the data, the displayed values are updated each time the STP is refreshed or opened.

If a SAS Web Report Studio report is used to display the data, the displayed values are updated each time the report is refreshed or opened.

If a WebDAV Content Portlet is used to display the data, the displayed values are updated when the portlet is recreated and sent to the WebDAV to replace the existing content, and the user refreshes the Portal or logs back into it.

Printing Indicators and Dashboards

To print indicators and dashboards from SAS Web Report Studio, complete the following steps:

Select ReportIPage Setup to open the Page Setup dialog box. Adjust page settings such as margins and orientation, and then click

2 Select Report

to display a PDF ﬁle that you can print or save.

Print to open the Print dialog box. Click

Printing Indicators and Dashboards 25

OK.

Preview and Print

CHAPTER

Displaying Dashboards in the SAS Information Delivery Portal

Prerequisites for This Chapter Overview: Displaying Dashboards in the SAS Information Delivery Portal Display a Dashboard in a WebDAV Content Portlet

Step 1: Add the Dashboard’s Output Files to the WebDAV Repository Step 2: Create a WebDAV Content Portlet Step 3: Add a Dashboard to the WebDAV Content Portlet 30 Step 4: Make the Dashboard Available to Portal Users Use a Macro to Add Files to the WebDAV Repository (Optional)

Prerequisites for This Chapter

This chapter makes the following assumptions:

You are using SAS Information Delivery Portal 2.0 with SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 4.

Note: In this chapter, the description of the portal’s graphical interface corresponds to the SAS Information Delivery Portal 2.0 with Hot Fix WEBINFRAKIT06 applied. However, that hot ﬁx is not required in order to render your dashboards in the portal.

Your deployment includes the Xythos WebFile Server (WFS). You must use Xythos

WFS to manage dashboard output in a WebDAV repository.

You have access to one or more sample SAS programs that generate dashboard output. For information about the samples, see Chapter 2, “Downloading and Modifying The Dashboard Samples,” on page 5.

You know how to start the SAS Information Delivery Portal. For information about starting the portal and the servers on which it depends, see “Starting the Web Applications” in the SAS Intelligence Platform: Web Application Administration Guide, which can be found at

You are familiar with the SAS Information Delivery Portal. If you need instructions on using the portal, click the the portal page.

http://support.sas.com/913administration.

Help link in the upper right corner of

Overview: Displaying Dashboards in the SAS Information Delivery Portal

The SAS Information Delivery Portal enables you to display key performance indicators as dashboards in portlets. Authorized portal users will then see the dashboard indicators when they log on to the portal. Here is an example of a dashboard that is displayed in a portlet labeled Dial Meters. The dashboard consists of four dial indicators.

28 Overview: Displaying Dashboards in the SAS Information Delivery Portal

Display 5.1 Sample Dashboard Indicators in a Portlet

Chapter 5

Users can click an indicator to drill down to an HTML page that contains more

information about the indicator. This HTML page is speciﬁed in the sample SAS program that generates the dashboard output. By default, the indicators drill down to a generic HTML page that is included with the samples.

Note: When you drill down to the HTML page, the new page loads into the same

browser window as the portal and replaces the portal page. The portal session is still in effect, however. You can click the browser’s

Back button to return to the portal page.

The best way to present a dashboard in the portal is to display the dashboard in a

WebDAV content portlet. A WebDAV content portlet enables you to enforce security so that only authorized users can see the dashboard contents. A WebDAV content portlet also provides drill-down capability so that users can access any additional information that you make available.

A WebDAV content portlet displays the contents of a speciﬁed HTML fragment that

is stored in the portal’s WebDAV repository. An HTML fragment is an HTML ﬁle that does not include opening and closing HTML tags, HEAD tags, or BODY tags, and which can be displayed successfully in the cell of an HTML table.

Note: As an alternative to displaying the dashboard in a WebDAV content portlet,

you can add a SAS Stored Process to a collection portlet. Users can then run the stored process to generate dashboard output and view its output via the SAS Stored Process Web application. Note that with this option, the dashboard is not displayed inside of a portlet.

If you choose this option, then be sure to register the stored process in metadata. (See

Chapter 3, “Registering a New Stored Process,” on page 9.) With this option, you don’t need Xythos WFS unless the stored process produces package results. For instructions on adding content items to a collection portlet, see the portal’s online Help.

Step 2: Create a WebDAV Content Portlet 29

Display a Dashboard in a WebDAV Content Portlet

Step 1: Add the Dashboard’s Output Files to the WebDAV Repository

To display a dashboard in a WebDAV content portlet, you ﬁrst add the dashboard’s HTML and GIF ﬁles to the WebDAV repository. Complete these steps:

Run the SAS program that generates the output that you want to display.

The ﬁlename for the SAS program should include the word “Portal.” For

example, you might run a program named

sliderDashPortal.sas. The programs targeted for the portal produce ﬁles that

are HTML fragments. These programs contain an ODS statement that is similar to the following statement:

ODS HTML path=odsout body="&name..htm"

(title="Dial Meter Dashboard" no_top_matter no_bottom_matter)

style=minimal;

Add the output ﬁles to the WebDAV repository. See the Xythos documentation for instructions on adding ﬁles.

dialMeterDashPortal.sas

Note: A macro is available that adds ﬁles to the WebDAV repository. For details about using this macro, see “Use a Macro to Add Files to the WebDAV Repository (Optional)” on page 32.

If you want the dashboard to be available to all portal users, then add the output ﬁles to

sasdav/Public in the Xythos repository. If you want to limit the dashboard to a

group that is deﬁned in metadata, then add the ﬁles to the folder for that group.

For example, you might add the output ﬁles to a folder named

sasdav/Sales in order

to make the dashboard available to a group named Sales that is deﬁned in metadata. Before members of this group can see the dashboard in the portal, the Sales group must be granted Read and Inherit Read permissions on the WebDAV folder in Xythos.

Note: If you need to create a group in metadata, you can do so using SAS Management Console. You must restart Xythos WFS before it can ﬁnd the new group in metadata.

Step 2: Create a WebDAV Content Portlet

After you have added the dashboard ﬁles to WebDAV, create a WebDAV content portlet that will display the dashboard output. The procedure for creating a WebDAV content portlet is the same as the procedure for creating other types of portlets, except that you select a different value for the

Complete these steps to create a WebDAV content portlet:

1 Start the SAS Information Delivery Portal and log on.

If you want to share the portlet content so that other users can view it, you should log on as a content administrator for the respective group. For more information, see “Conﬁgure a Group Content Administrator” in the SAS Intelligence Platform: Web Application Administration GuideYou can also log on as the SAS Web Administrator, who is a content administrator for all groups.

2 Navigate to the page where you want to add the portlet. 3 Select 4 On the Edit Page Content page, click Add Portlets.

Options

Edit Content.

Portlet type

ﬁeld.

30 Step 3: Add a Dashboard to the WebDAV Content Portlet

Chapter 5

5 On the Create tab of the Add Portlets page, select WebDAV Content Portlet

the portlet type.

6 Enter descriptive information about the portlet:

Name

Short name that will appear in the title area at the top of the portlet. Description

Short description that will appear with the portlet in search results. Keywords

Single words that you or other users can use to search for this portlet. Use

spaces to separate keywords from one another.

Note: To ensure efﬁcient searching, develop a standard list of keywords

and use these keywords consistently.

If you are a group content administrator, then you can specify a location (group)

with which to share the portlet. The group can be Public or some other group that is speciﬁed in metadata. You must have WriteMetadata permission for the respective group in metadata.

Click

Add.

A message appears, indicating that the portlet was added.

If you want to create additional portlets, repeat steps 5 through 8. When you are ﬁnished creating new portlets, click

10 On the Edit Page Content page, specify where the new portlets are to appear on

Done.

the page:

If you are using a column layout, you can move the portlets to different

columns or to different positions within the columns.

If you are using a grid layout, specify where you want each portlet to appear

by selecting the portlet names in the drop-down boxes for the appropriate

cells. To span rows or columns, select the same portlet in adjoining cells. For more information about specifying the layout of portlets, see the online Help.

11 Click

OK. The original page is displayed, with the new portlets added.

The new WebDAV content portlet contains a message that instructs you to edit the portlet and select the HTML ﬁle that you want to display. You can now add a dashboard to the portlet, as described in the next section.

Step 3: Add a Dashboard to the WebDAV Content Portlet

After you create a WebDAV content portlet, you must edit the portlet in order to specify the path to the dashboard’s HTML ﬁle. The ﬁle must be stored in the portal’s WebDAV repository in a folder that you are authorized to access. You can also specify a link to additional detailed information.

To edit a WebDAV content portlet, complete these steps:

1 If you are not logged on to the SAS Information Delivery Portal, then log on now.

2 Navigate to the page that contains the portlet that you want to edit.

3 In the portlet’s title bar, click the Edit Contents icon .

4 On the Edit Portlet page, select the HTML fragment that you want to display. You

can take these actions:

Select a ﬁle in the list by clicking on the ﬁle’s name.

Step 4: Make the Dashboard Available to Portal Users 31

Sort the items in the contents list by clicking on the appropriate column heading. For example, click

Navigate to a different folder using one of the following methods:

To navigate to a folder that is at a higher level in the tree, click the down arrow on the

To navigate to the folder at the next-highest level, click the

Location list box and then click the name of the folder.

Date Modified

to sort the items by date.

Up One

Level

To navigate to a subfolder of the current folder, click on a folder name in

icon .

the contents list.

5 If you want the portlet to display a link to additional detailed information, then in

the

Detail link

ﬁeld, specify a SBIP URL for the item that contains the information. You can link to content that is located in the WebDAV repository, or you can link to content that is deﬁned in SAS metadata.

To create the URL, follow these steps:

Use the Search tool to ﬁnd the content item that you want to link to.

Copy the item’s path information from the

Location

column in the search

results.

For WebDAV content, the path begins with the name of the WebDAV

repository. The default repository name is

WebDAVDemo.

For content that is deﬁned in SAS metadata, the path begins with the

name of the metadata repository. The default repository name is

c After the path, enter a slash (

/) followed by the content item’s name (from

Foundation.

the Name column in the search results).

d Place the following characters in front of the path:

sbip://

Note: The portal Web application uses the SAS Business Intelligence Platform (SBIP) protocol as a default even if you do not specify it explicitly.

Here are some examples of SBIP URLs for various types of content items:

sbip://Foundation/Samples/Stored Processes/Sample: Shoe Sales

Graphics

sbip://Foundation/BIP Tree/ReportStudio/Maps/SalesEast

sbip://Foundation/BIP Tree/ReportStudio/Shared/Reports/

Sales.srx

sbip://WebDAVDemo/Users/sasdemo/detail.html

6 Click Save.

When the portlet appears, it will display the contents of the HTML fragment.

Step 4: Make the Dashboard Available to Portal Users

When you created the WebDAV content portlet, you had the option of sharing the portlet with a group. If you didn’t share the portlet at that time, you can later edit the portlet’s properties and specify a share location.

You can also share the page on which you added the portlet. When you share a page that contains a portlet, you can specify whether you also want to share the portlet. For instructions, see the portal’s online Help. Depending on the share type, group members will either see the page the next time that they log on, or group members can search for and add the page to their portals. For details about shared pages, see “Understanding

32 Use a Macro to Add Files to the WebDAV Repository (Optional)

Pages and Page Templates” in the SAS Intelligence Platform: Web Application Administration Guide.

After you create the portlet, you can edit the portlet as needed. Any changes that you

make to a shared portlet are seen by all users who can access the portlet.

Use a Macro to Add Files to the WebDAV Repository (Optional)

You can use a SAS macro to add the directory that contains your dashboard ﬁles to

the WebDAV repository.

The SAS macro, named

Integration Technologies; this product must be installed and licensed on the system where the macro is run. (SAS Integration Technologies is included with the SAS Information Delivery Portal.)

Complete these steps to use the macro:

Create a SAS program that invokes the

located in the dashboard download package. The macro is also included as an

attachment to the portal dashboard samples in the SAS Samples application.

2 In your SAS program, when you invoke

arguments that specify the ﬁles to be copied, the WebDAV location, and the

credentials that are required to write to that location.

Here is the syntax for the

copyToWebDAV, uses features that are included with SAS

Chapter 5

copyToWebDAV macro. The macro ﬁle is

copyToWebDAV, you must pass a set of

copyToWebDAV macro:

%copyToWebDAV (dirname, davloc, userid, passwd)

Here are descriptions of the parameters:

dirname Specify the full path of the directory that contains the ﬁles to be

added to the WebDAV repository. Enclose the path in single quotation marks. For example:

’C:\dashboard\Dial_Meter’

Note: If the directory contains any subdirectories, they will

not be copied to the WebDAV repository.

davloc Specify the URL for the WebDAV location, enclosed in single

quotation marks. For example:

’http://<WebDAVHost>:8300/sasdav/Sales/dial_meters’

In this example, the macro creates a

sasdav/Sales

ﬁles in

C:\dashboard\Dial_Meter to that folder.

on the WebDAV server, and then copies all the

dial_meters

folder under

CAUTION:

Be sure to specify a unique location for the directory.

If the location that you specify already exists on the WebDAV server, then you will overwrite the existing ﬁles.

userid Specify the user ID that is used to connect to the WebDAV server,

enclosed in single quotation marks. If the WebDAV server runs on a Windows system, then the user ID should be qualiﬁed with either the domain name or the machine name. For example:

<Windows domain or machine>\saswbadm

The user ID that you specify must be authorized to write to the

WebDAV location that is speciﬁed for the davloc parameter. In the example, saswbadm has write permissions for the

Sales

location on the WebDAV server.

sasdav/

Use a Macro to Add Files to the WebDAV Repository (Optional) 33

passwd Specify the password that is used to authenticate the user that

you speciﬁed in the previous argument, enclosed in single quotation marks. It is recommended that you encrypt the password, but you are not required to do so.

Use SAS proprietary 32-bit encryption to encrypt passwords.

For example, to encrypt a password of

pswd123, you would submit

this code in the SAS Program Editor:

proc pwencode in=’pswd123’ method=sasenc;

run;

Here is a sample SAS program that includes and then invokes the

copyToWebDAV

%include "copyToWebDAV.sas";

%copyToWebDAV(’C:\dashboard\Dial_Meter’,

’http://localhost:8300/sasdav/Sales/dial_meters’,

’saswbadm’, ’{sasenc}4CE77C1519B5EBA351AAA7734A6CA437’);

Save and run the SAS program.

macro:

CHAPTER

Displaying Dashboards in the SAS Stored Process Web Application

Prerequisites for This Chapter Overview: Displaying Dashboards in the SAS Stored Processes Web Application Display a Dashboard or Indicator Navigate the SAS Stored Process Web Application Modify the Execution Options for a Stored Process References 40

Prerequisites for This Chapter

The information in this chapter makes the following assumptions:

All necessary components of the SAS Intelligence Platform, including the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) or Java Development Kit (JDK), a servlet container (such as Apache Tomcat or BEA Weblogic), and the SAS Web Infrastructure Kit or SAS Information Delivery Portal have been installed and conﬁgured at your site. This sample has been tested using SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 4. The SAS Stored Process Server that contains the dashboard programs has been started.

The stored process code for the dashboards and indicators (for the example discussed in this chapter, the ﬁle is named telesalesDashSTP.sas) has been downloaded and saved in the source code repository on the SAS Stored Process Server at your site. See Chapter 2, “Downloading and Modifying The Dashboard Samples,” on page 5 for more information about how to download the code.

The stored processes have been registered at your site with SAS Management Console. See Chapter 3, “Registering a New Stored Process,” on page 9 for more information about how to register these sample stored processes.

You know how to log on to the SAS Stored Process Web Application, and you have a valid user ID and a password. (You need to have metadata permission to register and execute the stored process, and ﬁle system permissions to create the SAS program.)

You are familiar with using the SAS Stored Process Web Application. For more information about the SAS Stored Process Web Application, see the documentation about SAS Stored Processes in the

Developer’s Guide library9.html

You have access to and know the location of the Telesales Dashboard, which is the example that is used in this chapter.

at http://support.sas.com/rnd/itech/library/

SAS Integration Technologies:

36 Overview: Displaying Dashboards in the SAS Stored Processes Web Application

Chapter 6

Overview: Displaying Dashboards in the SAS Stored Processes Web Application

SAS Stored Process Web Application enables you to display dashboards or key performance indicators in a Web browser using stored processes. Here is an example of a complex dashboard stored process that consists of several types of indicators (Few 2006, p. 199).

Display 6.1 Sample Dashboard in the SAS Stored Process Web Application

Display a Dashboard or Indicator

To use the SAS Stored Process Web Application to view output from a dashboard or indicator, open a Web browser and enter the URL for this sample. You can specify input parameters as a sequence of name/value pairs in a URL by using the query string syntax. Each name in the query string is separated from the following value by an equals (=). For example, the SAS Stored Process Web Application might have the following URL:

http://server01.na.abc.com:8080/SASStoredProcess/

do?_program=/Users/jdoe/Telesales+Dashboard

The URL speciﬁes your server, an absolute path to the SAS Stored Process Web Application, and the query string (following the question mark character). In this example, parameter that speciﬁes the metadata location and name of the stored process to be executed.

There are special rules for the formatting of name/value pairs in a URL. Special characters (most punctuation characters, including spaces) in a value must be URL

_program=/Users/jdoe/Telesales+Dashboard is the reserved input

Navigate the SAS Stored Process Web Application 37

encoded. Spaces can be encoded as a plus (+) or %20. Other characters are encoded

using the %nn convention, where nn is the hexadecimal representation of the character

in the ASCII character set. In the previous example, the value

Telesales+Dashboard

Dashboard

. The space in the name is encoded as a plus (+). If your parameter values

actually identiﬁes the stored process named

/Users/jdoe/

Telesales

might contain special characters, it is important that they are URL encoded.

The dashboard or indicator is displayed in the Web browser, as follows:

Display 6.2 Sample Dashboard in the SAS Stored Process Web Application

Navigate the SAS Stored Process Web Application

Instead of using the _PROGRAM variable, you can start with the application URL for the SAS Stored Process Web Application and navigate to the stored process that contains the dashboard or indicator that you want to display. Your application URL might look like the following URL:

http://server01.na.abc.com:8080/SASStoredProcess/do

When you enter this URL, the SAS Stored Process Web Application welcome page is displayed (if Welcome.htm is installed). The Welcome page might look like this:

38 Navigate the SAS Stored Process Web Application

Display 6.3 Welcome Page for the SAS Stored Process Web Application

From this page, you can click List Available Stored Processes in order to display a

page that contains a tree view of metadata repositories, folders, and stored processes. (You can also append the _ACTION variable with a value of INDEX (_ACTION=INDEX) to the SAS Stored Process Web Application URL in order to display this page. For example, the URL might be

SASStoredProcess/do?_action=index

tree view in order to view metadata for the stored process or to run the stored process. A page with the tree view and metadata might look like this:

Chapter 6

http://server01.na.abc.com:8080/

.) You can then select a stored process in the

Display 6.4 Stored Process List and Summary Page

Click Execute to see the execution options. For more information about modifying

these options, see “Modify the Execution Options for a Stored Process” on page 39.

Modify the Execution Options for a Stored Process 39

Click Execute

to run the stored process and display the dashboard or indicator in the

Web browser.

Modify the Execution Options for a Stored Process

You can modify the execution options for a stored process if you want to do things like the following:

specify whether to open a new Web browser window to display the stored process output.

show the SAS log, execution time, or execution trace with the stored process output.

Note: The items in this list are just a few of the modiﬁcations you can make with the execution options page. However, do not attempt to modify the ODS style, graphic device, or output type for these dashboards and indicators. These options are set in the SAS code for each sample.

To get to the execution options page, you can either navigate to it using the method described in the previous section, or you can use the _PROGRAM variable along with _ACTION=PROPERTIES in the URL. Multiple name/value pairs in the URL are separated by ampersands (&). For example, the execution options page might have the following URL:

http://server01.na.abc.com:8080/SASStoredProcess/

do?_program=/Users/jdoe/Telesales+Dashboard&_action=properties

Here is an example of what the execution options page looks like:

Display 6.5 Stored Process Execution Options Page

40 References

References

Chapter 6

For more information about the other execution options on this page, see the

documentation about the SAS Stored Process Web Application in the

Technologies: Developer’s Guide library/library9.html

at http://support.sas.com/rnd/itech/

When you are ﬁnished modifying the execution options, click

SAS Integration

Execute

to run the

stored process and display the dashboard or indicator in the Web browser.

Few, Stephen. 2006. Information Dashboard Design. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media,

Inc.

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, please send them to us on a photocopy of this page, or send us electronic mail.

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