How Dundas Dashboard Benefits Developers/IT
Dundas Dashboard was designed from the outset to be a highly extendible dashboarding platform, with you as a developer/IT professional specifically in mind. From our open API to DundasScript™, there are many powerful features that make Dundas Dashboard the most extensible dashboard technology available. We encourage you to contact us and talk to a technical support specialist if you have any questions.
Some of the key features from a developer/IT perspective that benefit you include:
Open Application Programming Interface (API)
Dundas Dashboard understands that every organization is unique and with our open API, you can customize and extend our product to your business in key areas.
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Data Provider API
Dundas Dashboard supports many popular types of database connections; however, Dundas recognizes we cannot provide connections to every type of database in existence. With the Data Provider API, you can develop your own custom data provider for any SQL-compliant type of connection (e.g., ODBC, DB2, PostgreSQL) and various type of tabular data sources, including web services and structured flat files.
Data Visualization (DV) Plugins API
Dundas Dashboard provides many common data visualizations out of the box but Dundas understands an organization may require industry-specific visualizations. With our DV Plugins API, you can integrate third-party Silverlight data visualization controls within Dundas Dashboard. For example, if you work in the manufacturing industry, you may need workflow diagram visualizations. You can integrate any workflow diagram control built in Silverlight using this API and it will show up in our dashboard designer for use.
Navigation API
The designer of your dashboard may want you to create a custom user control for navigating through dashboards. The Navigation API allows you to get a list of all available dashboards for a particular Dundas Dashboard user and with this information, you can create a custom navigation control. For example, you can create traditional tab navigations or even a dashboard slide show.
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Export API
There are many ways a dashboard viewer may want to export their dashboard. With our Export API, you can create additional add-ons for exporting purposes. This facilitates building new export types without having to wait for a major release of Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, etc.
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Authentication Provider API
Dundas recognizes you may have existing authentication systems that you wish to use in a dashboard solution. With Dundas Dashboard's Authentication Provider API, you can:
- Leverage your existing user accounts within Dundas Dashboard so you don't have to recreate them
- Create, update and remove user accounts in your native authentication system via our user-management interface
SharePoint Integration
Your organization may be employing SharePoint 2007/2010 as your business intelligence and collaboration portal. With Dundas Dashboard, you can:
- Take advantage of the data stored in SharePoint lists and Excel Services, so you can create performance dashboards
- Easily install our dashboard viewer Web Part so your organization can view dashboards built with Dundas Dashboard within your SharePoint portal
- Create personalized dashboards within SharePoint via its Web Part zones and page designs (for your business users)
Application Integration
Many dashboard projects will form part of a larger system and need to be integrated into existing infrastructure. Dundas Dashboard provides a separate dashboard viewer control for you to embed into your web, corporate portal, Silverlight application, or other project that lets you display dashboards. The custom authentication ability also lets you integrate your existing authentication system for easier setup.
Enhanced Dashboard Viewer Control
Dundas Dashboard has added more functionality to the dashboard viewer control to enhance the dashboard experience for your users. You can integrate the dashboard viewer control into your existing web application or web portal and your users will benefit from the following features:
- The dashboard explorer - this allows users to navigate through the available dashboards, dashboard mashups or Dundas DashBlocks (individual business metrics)
- The tool bar - which will expose features such as: exporting (image, CSV), bookmarks, saving the dashboard URL link, user annotations and help
- Mashup creation – users can now build personalized dashboards using dashboard mashup elements. Users can see a list of available dashboard mashup elements and drag and drop them onto their mashup workspace and save the work for viewing later
Another unique feature of Dundas Dashboard is its full scripting capabilities which provide extra control over all dashboard elements. The DundasScript editor lets developers make distinctive changes to data visualization components and handle UI component interaction (like the dashboard designer's text entry field and drop-down menu controls) at runtime. It uses a C# syntax, with server side customization done in .NET and client side customization done in Silverlight.
Get in touch with us and learn more
Contact us to get more information on Dundas Dashboard:
800-463-1492 (Int'l: + 1-416-467-5100)
View our tutorials, check out our online demo or download a full evaluation version.
We’ve made it easy for you to start building your first dashboard in minutes.