/ Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3 / Blind folio:  Chapter 3 The Manage Dashboard Screen 37 Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3  Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3 Chapter 3: The Manage Dashboard Screen  here are a few prerequisites to creating a dashboard in Oracle CRM On Demand. You will have, by this point, determined that a dashboard is the correct solution to fill your reporting need. You will have a plan for what you want to include on that dashboard and will know who will be using it and how. Of course, you should also have the reports you developed and saved in Oracle CRM On Demand that you intend to place on your dashboard. This book will not do much to help you with this last prerequisite. If you need a resource for developing reports in Oracle CRM On Demand, please stop here and pick up a copy of Oracle CRM On Demand Reporting (McGraw-Hill, 2008). In this chapter, you will read about the Dashboard tab in Oracle CRM On Demand, particularly the Manage Dashboards page. If you access the Dashboard tab in Oracle CRM On Demand and do not see the Manage Dashboard link at the right end of the header just below the Help link, you are most likely missing the Manage Dashboard privilege in your Role setup. Your system administrator can assist you with this if you do not have access to update your role settings.  The Dashboard interface is simple. To access dashboards in Oracle CRM On Demand, you open the Dashboard screen by clicking the Dashboard tab. Upon accessing the Dashboard tab, the Overview Dashboard loads automatically. This is because the Overview Dashboard is the first dashboard listed and the default dashboard in the Select Dashboard field. Besides the dashboard itself, there are only two elements on this screen. The Select Dashboard field and Show button are used to select and execute a dashboard. If no custom dashboards have been created in your Oracle CRM On Demand environment yet, you will probably see only the six prebuilt dashboards listed here. If you happen to be using a version of Oracle CRM On Demand with Contact On Demand integrated or a Partner Management version of Oracle CRM On Demand, you could also see the Communications or Channel Manager Snapshot dashboards here. As new dashboards are added to your instance, they will appear in this list, in alphabetical order, below the six prebuilt dashboards. Your custom dashboards are separated from the prebuilt dashboards in the list by a dashed line. When you select a dashboard from the Select Dashboard field, the selected dashboard does not run right away. If it did, it would get rather annoying, rather quickly. To run a dashboard, select the dashboard from the Select Dashboard field and click the Show button. The Dashboard screen will refresh and begin loading the dashboard. When a dashboard loads, all of the reports on the dashboard execute at once, which sometimes means that the reports render on the screen at different times rather than all together. T Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3  Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3 Chapter 3: The Manage Dashboard Screen  Dashboards load inside a frame on the Dashboard screen below the light blue bar just below the Select Dashboard field. This frame will contain scrollbars, both vertical and horizontal, if the size of the dashboard is larger than the size of the frame. The other element on the Dashboard screen is a hyperlink to the Manage Dashboards screen. The Manage Dashboards link, located on the right side of the Dashboard header, is only visible if you have the Manage Dashboards privilege enabled on your user role. If you do not see this link on the Dashboard screen, contact your system administrator to have your user role modified. You will need to sign out and sign back in to see the change.  When you click the Manage Dashboards hyperlink on the Dashboard tab, you navigate to the Manage Dashboards screen, as shown in Figure 3-1. It is on this screen that you will create new custom dashboards. Creating a new dashboard is a two-step process. The act of creating the dashboard record is just the first step. The design step is the second step, and is much more involved. The elements on the Manage Dashboards screen include the New Dashboard button, which, as the name implies, is used to create the dashboard record. Once a custom dashboard exists in Oracle CRM On Demand, the other links on this screen become active.  Manage Dashboards screen Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3  Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3 Chapter 3: The Manage Dashboard Screen  Below the Manage Dashboards header, you will see the dashboard name and description of all of the custom dashboards. To the left of each dashboard name, you will find an Edit link along with a drop-down menu containing the Delete and Design links. By clicking the Dashboard Name header, you can change the sort order of the dashboard list. You may notice that the six prebuilt dashboards are not shown in the list of dashboards on the Manage Dashboards screen. This begs the question of how you change or delete the prebuilt dashboards. The simple answer to that question is that you cannot. As of this writing, the six dashboards included with every instance of Oracle CRM On Demand are neither editable nor removable. They always appear in the Select Dashboard field on the Dashboard tab. This, of course, is subject to change in future releases of Oracle CRM On Demand as the features and functionality continue to expand and be enhanced with each release.  Before you can begin laying out your new dashboard with reports and links and prompts, you must create a new dashboard record. I like to think of this step as creating the canvas for the dashboard I am about to create. That is essentially what you are doing when you click the New Dashboard button and create that dashboard record. You are creating the unique URL, or webpage, that will be your dashboard. To create the dashboard, click the New Dashboard button. This brings you to the Dashboard Edit screen shown in Figure 3-2. There is not much to this screen, as you can see. There are only two fields, and of the two, only the Dashboard Name field is required. To create your dashboard, enter a name for the dashboard in the Dashboard Name field. Bear in mind that the name you give the dashboard here will appear in the Select Dashboard field on the Dashboard tab, so it pays to be both concise and as descriptive as possible with the dashboard name. If you find that you just cannot describe your dashboard with a simple dashboard name, you can take advantage of the Description field. The Description field, it is good to know, is really only helpful for you and other dashboard  Dashboard Edit screen Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3  Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3 Chapter 3: The Manage Dashboard Screen  developers. The description that you enter here only shows up on the Manage Dashboards screen, to which most of the users of your Oracle CRM On Demand application probably have no access. All most users will ever see before actually executing the dashboard is the dashboard name in the Select Dashboard field on the Dashboard tab. Once you have named, and optionally described, your dashboard on the Dashboard Edit screen, click the Save button to save the dashboard record and return to the Manage Dashboards screen. If you are creating multiple dashboards, you also have the option of clicking the Save & New Dashboard button. This button saves the current dashboard and brings you right back to the Dashboard Edit screen, ready to create another dashboard record. The Cancel button allows you to exit the Dashboard Edit screen without saving or creating the dashboard record. Back on the Manage Dashboards screen, after creating a new dashboard record, you will see the newly created dashboard in the list of custom dashboards. To the left of the dashboard name are the Edit link and the drop-down menu with the Delete and Design options. The Edit link will bring you right back to the Dashboard Edit screen, where you can change the name and description of the dashboard.  Inside the drop-down menu to the left of each dashboard listed on the Manage Dashboards screen you will find a Delete link. The Delete link, as you might expect, allows you to delete a dashboard record. Deleted dashboards do not appear in the Deleted Items list like other records in Oracle CRM On Demand. This means that once deleted, that dashboard is gone forever and cannot be recovered. When you click the Delete link, you are presented with a confirmation dialog box, so it does take two clicks to delete a dashboard.  The final element of the Manage Dashboards screen is the Design link that appears in the drop-down menu to the immediate left of each dashboard name. The Design link opens the window shown in Figure 3-3. This is the Dashboard Editor window, which is the focus of the remainder of this book. For now, I will offer a brief description of the elements of the Dashboard Editor window. You will find exhaustive detail about each of these elements in the chapters that follow.  Beginning with the buttons to the right of the dashboard name in the header, the first is the Dashboard Properties button. There are not many properties to edit here. Essentially, the dashboard properties that you are able to modify here include the Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3  Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3 Chapter 3: The Manage Dashboard Screen  dashboard description and the name and description of any additional dashboard pages. This brings us to the Page Selector and Add Dashboard Page buttons to the right of the dashboard properties button. The Page Selector button allows you to select the page within the dashboard that you want to modify. Clearly, this indicates that it is possible to have multiple pages in your dashboard, which is what the Add Dashboard Page button allows you to do. In the next chapter, you can read much more about pages in a dashboard and their properties. Next up is the PDF and Print Control properties button. With the PDF and Print Control settings, you are able to identify print settings such as page size, orientation, and headers and footers. It is not unusual for users to want to print dashboards, and with these settings you can control how that printout will appear and what information will print on the page. The Add Column button gives you the ability to split the dashboard page into multiple columns. Each column will have its own Properties button and Delete button, allowing you to format each column independently and remove columns from the layout.  Under the Dashboard Objects heading on the Dashboard Editor screen, we find five objects that may be dragged onto the dashboard canvas. Each of these is covered in great detail in Chapter 5 of this book. Here I provide a brief description of each.  Dashboard Editor window Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3  Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3 Chapter 3: The Manage Dashboard Screen  First is the Section object. Multiple sections may be added to your dashboard and configured independently. A section is essentially a frame within the dashboard. All of the other objects that you place on your dashboard will be positioned inside a section. A number of options may be set for each section. Sections may be collapsible, they may be displayed dynamically based on the results of a query request, they may have their own title displayed and be formatted with borders, and so forth. The next object is the Link or Image object. This is a simple object that allows you to display a hyperlink or image in your dashboard. This can be a link to another report in Oracle CRM On Demand or any webpage URL. The Text object allows you to add some static text to your dashboard. This may be descriptive text, like we see in the prebuilt dashboards. You could include anything here, from instructions on how to use the dashboard, to important phone numbers, to a copyright statement. The Folder object is an interesting one. This object allows you to embed a report folder in your dashboard. The folder can be any folder in the reports’ Shared Folders. This essentially places a folder of report hyperlinks right on the dashboard screen. The Guided Navigation Link object, shown in the list as “Guided Nav. Link,” allows you to place a hyperlink on the dashboard, but display that link only when certain conditions are met. Those conditions are determined by whether or not rows are returned in another query request saved as a report in Oracle CRM On Demand.  The final section on the Dashboard Editor screen is Saved Content. This is where you will find all of the shared reports in Oracle CRM On Demand that you can add to your dashboard. Detailed information on adding reports to your dashboard is in Chapter 6. Essentially, the process of adding reports to a dashboard is a matter of locating the report in the folders in the Saved Content section, and clicking and dragging the report to the dashboard canvas. You may then adjust the properties and layout settings for each report independently to specify exactly how each report will appear in the dashboard. Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. This page intentionally left blank Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3 / Blind folio:  Chapter 4 Dashboard Pages and Properties 45 Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3  Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3 Chapter 4: Dashboard Pages and Properties  said earlier that a dashboard is a webpage that contains frames into which you place reports and other dashboard objects. When you created the dashboard record, as described in the previous chapter, you created that webpage. At this point, your dashboard is empty. In this chapter, I describe the process of configuring the dashboard by setting the dashboard properties and configuring dashboard pages. I should point out that the order of the remainder of this book is designed for your reference and ease of finding information rather than implying an order to how you complete your dashboard. Once you have created the dashboard record, which is an obvious first step, the order in which you configure the elements on that dashboard is not terribly important.  Across the top of the Dashboard Editor screen are a number of buttons that are used to configure the dashboard page. Figure 4-1 shows these elements. The first button is the Dashboard Properties button. You can identify this button by the pointing finger icon; or, by hovering your mouse over the button, you will see the name of the button in a tooltip. I am going to skip this button for now and move to the next element.  Next up on the Dashboard Editor toolbar is the Page Selector. This field allows you to select the page that you are designing on the Dashboard Editor screen. When you initially create a new dashboard, that dashboard will contain only a single page named “Page 1,” and this is what you see in the Page drop-down list field. Your dashboard may contain many pages. The number of pages that can be included in your dashboard is technically unlimited. Your dashboard may, however, become unwieldy, reaching a practical limit, if you add too many pages. I  Dashboard Editor toolbar Please purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark. [...]... pages, it appears with three tabs in Oracle CRM On Demand If you add a header to the second page (tab) in your dashboard and insert the page number in the header or footer, the first page of the printed dashboard page will be page number one The Image expression allows you to insert one of the stock images from the Oracle BI Presentation Server Because Oracle CRM On Demand is a hosted service, you do... matter of usability, practicality, or personal preference, the multipage dashboard is a popular and useful tool in Oracle CRM On Demand PDF and Print Controls The next button on the Dashboard Editor toolbar looks like a printer with a pointing finger on top of it This is the PDF and Print Control Properties button, and clicking it opens the PDF and Print Control window shown in Figure 4-4 You will... of the formatting back on the Edit Header or Edit Footer screen Finally, back on the Edit Header or Edit Footer screen, we find one last field: the Display In Browser When Applicable check box When you select this check box, the header will appear on the dashboard in the Oracle CRM On Demand interface Footers only appear on a printed dashboard and not on the screen Click OK on the Edit Header or Edit... Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark 51 52   Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards necessarily the user’s local time It is a good idea to include some text after the @{timeCreated[hh::mm::ss]} expression to indicate the correct time zone so there is no confusion The Page Number expression returns a single number indicating the page number of the printed dashboard This does not correspond to... to the presentation server and are limited to the images provided by default Of course, these images are more useful for conditional formatting within your reports than they are for headers and footers Eventually, Oracle may provide access to the Presentation Server for loading custom images, but that ability is currently not available in Oracle CRM On Demand If you do want to select one of the stock... Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark 55 56   Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards The page break appears on the Dashboard Editor screen between rows as “ - - - - - Page Break with Column Break - - - - -” indicating where the page break will be when the dashboard is printed If you have a page break in your dashboard and view that dashboard in Oracle CRM On Demand, ... Clear button to the right of the Insert Field button This button will clear the entire header or footer Clicking this button removes all text and expressions entered into the five text fields Next to each of the text fields, you find an Edit Format button When you click an Edit Format button, the Edit Format window opens, as shown in Figure 4-7 The Edit Format window allows you to make decisions on the... to make decisions on the way the fonts and header and footer sections appear on your dashboard The font settings available here allow you to set the font family, size, color, style, and effects The default font is 10 point Arial, and the default color is black with regular styling and no effects Your font options are Arial, Arial Black, Arial Narrow, Courier New, Garamond, Lucida Sans Unicode, Microsoft... purchase PDF Split-Merge on www.verypdf.com to remove this watermark 53 54   Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards Within the cell portion of the Edit Format window, you are able to apply horizontal and vertical alignment and add a background color to the cell The default horizontal alignment is centered for the top and bottom rows of the header or footer as well as the center column in the second row The default... And Footer section You have the option of including a header, footer, or both on your printed dashboard Including either a header or footer consists of two steps First, click the Include Header or Include Footer check box Next to each check box field is an Edit button Click the Edit button to configure the header or footer on the Edit Header or Edit Footer window shown in Figure 4-5 On this window, . watermark. / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3  Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards. watermark. / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Michael D. Lairson / 174 534-3  Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards / Oracle CRM On Demand Dashboards