Mashboard Configuration

Contents 1 Mashboard Configuration Overview 2 .mashconfig File 3 Distinct User Contexts 4 mashboard.projectconfig File 5 Adding Content 6 Configuration File Storage

Mashboard Configuration Overview

There are two main files used to configure and drive the Mashboard framework, “mashboard.projectconfig” contains global settings for available portlet categories, “main.mashconfig” defines the tabs that appear on the top of the dashboard UI, as well as the portlet definitions available on the “dock” for any canvas. In practice, you can configure as many uniquely named .mashconfig files as your application requires, simply substitute a unique name in the place of main for each new .mashconfig file. The IDs defined for the portlets in main.mashconfig are referenced in mashboard.projectconfig, so they must be unique.

.mashconfig File

main.mashconfig is made up of two primary sections: navItems (tabs) and portlets (drag and drop KPI’s). A shell version of the mashconfig file looks like this:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <mashConfig version="2.0">
     <navItems>   
        ...
     </navItems>
     <portlets>
        ...
     </portlets>
  </mashConfig>

Distinct User Contexts

The use of multiple mashconfig files is the key to enabling unique user contexts within the same Mashboard application. For example, you could create two files: employee.mashconfig and customer.mashconfig. These two files would be assigned access rights based on the employee and customer roles in the access control system. When a user requests access, their role is determined and the matching mashconfig file is loaded.

mashboard.projectconfig File

mashboard.projectconfig defines some context-wide details and the portlet categories used for the various canvas definitions (portlet categories were referred to as bizunits in the previous version of the Mashboard). In addition to the context-wide settings (which carry over from the previous version of the Mashboard) the file is made up of a series of portletCategory defintions. A shell version of the file looks like this:

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <projectConfig version="2.0">
     <site name="My Widget Factory" />
     <layout yui="yui-t2" />
     <header url="header.html"/>
     <footer url="footer.html"/>
     <portletCategories>
        <portletCategory id="someName" title="someTitle">
        </portletCategory>
     </portletCategories>   
  </projectConfig>

Adding Content

Please refer to the Content Management page for adding and modifying the content available to a particular context on the Mashboard.

Configuration File Storage

The mashboard configuration files are stored as resources on the iServer. In addition to providing security and persistence, this strategy allows all the configuration files used to manage the different contexts on any single Mashboard installation to be edited and deployed from a single Actuate BIRT workspace. This creates an easy way to push one or more files to the iServer leveraging Actuate BIRT's ability to interface with the iServer; alleviating the need for the user to publish each file as an individual upload via the admin UI.

Use the following process to create and publish new configuration files as you add to your Mashboard configuration:

1. Create a project in the Workspace that corresponds to your context name (the name of the folder located under the "mashboard" folder.
   1. If you do not yet have this workspace to manage all your configuration files, create a new one under C:\mashboard\Contexts
2. Create main.mashconfig and mashboard.projectconfig in the new BIRT project by right-clicking on the project and selecting "New --> Other --> General --> File".
3. Use the samples provided with the Mashboard install and the above documentation to populate the two files with the appropriate content.
   1. You may choose to open up an existing set of XML files off of the iServer to serve as a guide for the creation of the new files. The files powering the mashboard reference implementation are provided with the Mashboard DevShare package.
4. Publish the files to iServer
   1. Locate the target iServer on the "Servers" tab in Actuate BIRT Report Designer
   2. Connect to your iServer volume
   3. Navigate to the resources folder. Check to ensure there is a folder called "mashboard" located under Resources (/Resources/mashboard), create one if it does not already exist (use Actuate iServer Management Console to create new folders)
   4. Drag each XML file (mashboard.projectconfig and main.mashconfig) and drop them on the "mashboard" folder.
   5. A folder corresponding to the project name (the same name as the Mashboard project on iPortal) should be created automatically as a part of the deployment process.

Return to Actuate Mashboard Resources