Actuate 11 adds a new product to its lineup with BIRT 360, a dashboard application that puts the power to createdashboards in the hands of users, freeing up IT time and resources. BIRT 360 is a browser based zero foot print application based on the popular Google Gadget framework thus enabling BIRT 360 to not only leverage BIRTbased gadgets but also 3rd party Google Gadgets to create mashup applications.BIRT 360 provides users with two types of dashboards:
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- Operational dashboards: Business users can interact with or drill-down on individual KPIs to answer specific business questions. The dashboards interface is designed for business users to allow them to create custom dashboard pages withhout IT intervention and continuously monitor KPIs fo or faster response to changing data.<br />
- Analytic dashboards: BIRT 360 Analytic Dashboards are visual data exploration applications. Combining a set of filter and slicer gadgets with a set of KPIs built using rich visualizations, users are prompted to explore and drill-down into data to gain insights into their business. BIRT 360 makes it extremely easy for business users to uncover trends and perform root cause analysis.<br />
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Both types of dashboards enable any user to o create visually rich, dynamic dashboards on the fly:
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- Dashboards show a list of connecto ors, etc., making them easy to use for less-skilled users<br />
- Visual representations of corporate data<br />
- Drill-down/up analysis capabilities<br />
- Crosstab support<br />
- Pre-built or User constructed using BIRT Flash h Objects, Google gadgets, third-party gadgets, and feed eeds from other data sources<br />
- Create Mashup applications by com mbining BIRT based gadgets with 3rd party Google Gad adgets such as Google Maps etc.<br />
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BIRT 360 is designed to be used with BIRT T iServer. It effortlessly delivers personalized BIRT dashboard content to all authorized users. <br />
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Attached sample dashboard for Sales Analysis is an analytical dashboard created using BIRT 360. The dashboard uses a set of data selection and data visualization gadgets to facilitate visual exploration and analysis of data. Users can click on any value in the data selection list to see an instantaneous change in the data visualization KPIs. In addition, users can drill-down to details by clicking on any bar of the histogram. Users can also perform ad hoc analysis by clicking on the maximize button of the crosstab gadget. This leads them to BIRT Data Analyzer which enables users to perform ad hoc OLAP analysis on the dataset.<br />
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View Live Example<br />
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Note: This dashboard uses a BIRT report design (Revenue History by Product Line.rptdesign) and BIRT data object (Sales_Analytics.DATA). To set up this dashboard in your local BIRT iServer do the following:
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- Copy dashboard file to /Dashboard/Contents folder<br />
- Copy BIRT report design to folder /Public/Actuate11 Demo Pack/BIRT Data Object (This folder may not exist in your set up, so you will have to create new directories)<br />
- Copy BIRT data object to /Resources folder.<br />
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This will create a new "Sales Analysis" icon in the dashboard gallery that you can simply drag and drop next to default "My Documents" tab in information console. <br />
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Ashwini Verma
