Pinned Perspectives

What is a pinned perspective?

A 'pinned perspective' is a perspective that has been added to the navigation bar (available in v4.5 and above).

Pinning a perspective to the navigation bar creates a handy shortcut to a perspective for a specific resource. Usually, you first need to navigate to the specific resource to be able to choose what perspective you want to see. By pinning the perspective to the navigation bar, you can go to one specific perspective directly.

Note: A pinned perspective is one perspective for one specific resource. Even though a perspective can be available for different resources of the same type, pinning a perspective does not mean you pin the perspective to the navigation bar and then choose the resource you want to see. The pinned perspective will be about the one resource you were viewing when you pinned the perspective.

Use cases for pinned perspectives

In addition to creating a shortcut on the navigation bar, pinned perspectives offer you two further options:

• You can add the pinned perspective to a Team Folder to control who can view the pinned perspective.

  Note: Only Dashboard Server Admins can create and edit perspectives. This applies also to pinned perspectives in Team Folders. While a normal dashboard in a Team Folder can be edited by users when they have the author or owner role for the Team Folder, a pinned perspective in a Team Folder can't be edited by users, even if they have the author or owner role, since editing a perspective affects all resources of the same type.

  For more information about Team Folders and roles see Team Folders.

  How to create a pinned perspective and directly move it into a Team Folder

  Note: Only Dashboard Server Admins can create pinned perspectives.

  1. Go to the resource you want to pin a perspective for.

  2. Choose the perspective you want to pin for this resource from the perspective ribbon.

  3. Click on the Share this dashboard button at the top right of the page. This button is only visible when you are not in edit mode.

     

  4. Under Pin this perspective as a dashboard, click on the select location button.

     

  5. You'll see your navigation bar displayed as a tree structure. At the bottom of the tree you'll see the perspective as a new item highlighted in red. Drag the perspective into the navigation bar structure as you require.

     Note for Team Folders: If you want to add the perspective to a Team Folder you need to select the Team Folder from the drop down list at the top of the tree structure first.

     Name of the pinned perspective: By default, the name of the pinned perspective is the name of the resource (and resource group if applicable) followed by the name of the perspective. You can edit the name by clicking on it.

     

  6. Click the pin perspective button at the bottom of the navigation structure.

     

  How to move an existing pinned perspective into a Team Folder

  Who can move dashboards and pinned perspectives?

  From the navigation bar into a Team Folder: Only Dashboard Server Admins, as only Admins have permissions to edit a globally viewable dashboard.

  From a Team Folder to the navigation bar: Only Dashboard Server Admins, as only Admins have permissions to add a globally viewable dashboard.

  From one Team Folder into another Team Folder: You need to have an owner or author role for both Team Folders (Dashboard Server Admins automatically have the owner role for both).

   

  How to move a dashboard or pinned perspective

  1. Go to the dashboard or pinned perspective you want to move.

     Note: You need to go to the individual dashboard or pinned perspective because they can only be moved from there. You can't move dashboards in and out of Team Folders via the Team Folder settings or the edit navigation settings, but you can go to the dashboard or pinned perspective you want to move from there by clicking on the view dashboard button.

     

  2. Click the edit this dashboard button:

     

  3. Click the move button:

     

  4. You'll see the navigation bar as a tree structure. The team folder dropdown list at the top shows all the Team Folders you have the author or owner role for. Dashboard Server Administrators will see the everyone option in addition to all Team Folders in this dropdown list as only they can add or remove dashboards to or from the navigation bar.

  5. Select the Team Folder you want to move the dashboard in to.

  6. If there are other dashboards in the Team Folder, drag your dashboard into position in the navigation structure.

  7. Click the move button to complete the move.

     

• You can publish the pinned perspective via Open Access to make it visible for others who can't login to Dashboard Server (for more information about publishing with Open Access see Sharing Dashboards with anyone - Open Access)

  How to publish a pinned perspective via Open Access

  1. Go to the dashboard or pinned perspective you want to create an Open Access URL for.

     Note: If you want to create an Open Access URL for a pinned perspective, you need to be on the pinned perspective, not a general perspective that is not pinned. You can make sure you are on the pinned perspective by clicking on the name of the pinned perspective on the navigation bar. If you are on a perspective that is not pinned, you'll see a message that this perspective needs to be pinned first.

  2. Make sure the dashboard or pinned perspective is already published. If it is still a draft, publish it first.

  3. Click on the share this dashboard button. If you can't see the button, check if you are still in edit mode since this button is only visible when you are not in edit mode.

     

  4. You'll see the following sharing options:

  Sharing options

  Normal

  The sharing option Normal creates a link to the normal dashboard or perspective, meaning as a fully interactive version. Accessing the dashboard or perspective requires authentication with a Dashboard Server user license. The link is based on the dashboard's or perspective's ID and does not change when the dashboard or perspective is renamed. Normal: Just the URL based on the ID. Full-screen:The URL based on the ID, but with ?display=fullscreen appended. This will hide the navigation bar. Embed: The URL based on the ID, but with ?display=embed appended which will hide the navigation bar and page title. If the URL already uses a ? then you will need to append & first, for example, &?display=embed

  Open Access

  The Open Access feature allows you to share your dashboards with anyone, even if they are not a licensed Dashboard Server user. It creates an Open Access version of the original dashboard that can be accessed via its own URL without the need to login. Open Access dashboards are perfect for embedding them in user portals like Sharepoint, pushing them to wall monitors or using them as high-level reports for managers. Since there's no authentication needed, viewing Open Access dashboards does not consume Named User licenses which means you can share your dashboards with unlimited users. Creating an Open Access version of your dashboard doesn't change anything about the original dashboard. The original version can still be accessed by logged in users. How do Open Access dashboards work? An Open Access dashboard is a less interactive version of the original dashboard. For Dashboard Server v4: Less interactive means viewers of the dashboard can't hover to see graph figures and labels or click to drill down. The Open Access dashboard is server-rendered bitmap version of the original dashboard, that refreshes every time the original dashboard refreshes. For Dashboard Server v5: Less interactive means viewers of the dashboard can hover to see graph figures and labels. If your dashboard contains links to external tools, for example linked rows in a grid, vierwers can click those links. If viewers click on data to drill down to further data they will have to log in.

  5. In the Open Access section toggle the enable open access button to on.

     

  6. You will see the message 'Preparing your Open Access dashboard, please wait' and a thumbnail of the dashboard itself:

     

  7. Click preview to view the dashboard in Open Access mode.

     

     The dashboard is given an Open Access URL and enabled for Open Access. You can now give the URL to anyone you want to be able to access the dashboard.

  After a dashboard is updated the changes are shown on the Open Access dashboard when it next refreshes, usually in 60 seconds. On Dashboard Server v4 this may take up to 20 minutes.

Navigating from a pinned perspective to the resource

A pinned perspective shows a go to drilldown button which takes you to the resource. From there, you can see the perspective ribbon again and choose between all available perspectives for that resource.

Editing a pinned perspective

When you are viewing a pinned perspective and click on the edit this dashboard button you'll get a message that this dashboard is a pinned perspective and can't be edited here.

When you click on edit perspective you'll get to the resource that contains the perspective. Here you can navigate to the perspective and edit it like a normal perspective.

Note: Only Dashboard Server Admins can create and edit perspectives. This applies also to pinned perspectives in Team Folders. While a normal dashboard in a Team Folder can be edited by users when they have the author or owner role for the Team Folder, a pinned perspective in a Team Folder can't be edited by users, even if they have the author or owner role, since editing a perspective affects all resources of the same type.

Note: The changes you make to the perspective will apply to all resources for which the perspective is available, not just for the one resource that is shown in the pinned perspective.

How to create a pinned perspective

Note: Only Dashboard Server Admins can create pinned perspectives.

1. Go to the resource you want to pin a perspective for.

2. Choose the perspective you want to pin for this resource from the perspective ribbon.

3. Click on the Share this dashboard button at the top right of the page. This button is only visible when you are not in edit mode.

   

4. Under Pin this perspective as a dashboard, click on the select location button.

   

5. You'll see your navigation bar displayed as a tree structure. At the bottom of the tree you'll see the perspective as a new item highlighted in red. Drag the perspective into the navigation bar structure as you require.

   Note for Team Folders: If you want to add the perspective to a Team Folder you need to select the Team Folder from the drop down list at the top of the tree structure first.

   Name of the pinned perspective: By default, the name of the pinned perspective is the name of the resource (and resource group if applicable) followed by the name of the perspective. You can edit the name by clicking on it.

   

6. Click the pin perspective button at the bottom of the navigation structure.

   

How to delete a pinned perspective

The easiest way to delete a dashboard, perspective, or pinned perspective is to navigate to it, click the edit button and then click the delete button.

Note: If you are deleting a pinned perspective, you only delete the pinned perspective, not the original perspective.

Note about the discard button:

If a dashboard or perspective is not published yet (draft), the discard and discard changes buttons will delete it.

If the dashboard or perspective has been published, and then you make changes, discard will discard the changes and leave the previously published dashboard or perspective live.

If you unpublish a dashboard or perspective and then discard changes then the dashboard or perspective will be deleted.

More options to delete a dashboard or pinned perspective

Note: These options only work for dashboards and pinned perspectives, not for perspectives. If you delete a pinned perspective, only the pinned perspective will be deleted, not the original perspective.

Other options to delete a dashboard or pinned perspective are:

1. You can delete the dashboard or pinned perspective from the navigation bar. Deleting it from the navigation bar will delete it completely, not just from the navigation bar.

   Information about editing the navigation bar

   The global navigation editor is accessible only by Dashboard Server administrators (How to make a user a Dashboard Server administrator) from the right-hand menu ☰ > edit navigation or system > dashboards.

   This allows Dashboard Server administrators to reposition globally viewable folders and Team Folders on the navigation bar, as well as the ability to move any globally viewable dashboards.

   

   Globally viewable (normal) dashboards are shown simply by the dashboard name.

   Globally viewable folders (normal folders that appear on the navigation bars for everyone) are shown by a folder icon:

   

   Team folders are shown with this icon:

   

   Managing the dashboards within Team Folders is done from the Team Folder settings page.

   Click on the dashboard 'handle' to drag it to a new position, for example, drag it to the right to move it into a subfolder.

   

   Reordering content is saved automatically and any changes are instantly reflected.

   There are 3 icons across different elements of the navigation editor when hovering on a folder:

   	The edit team folder icon is shown next to Team Folders and clicking it will take you to the Team Folder settings page where you can view and sort the dashboards within the Team Folder.
   	The view folder button takes you to the folder itself to view or edit that folder.
   	The delete button will delete items. This deletes the dashboard or folder and sub-contents completely, not just from the navigation bar.

2. If the dashboard or pinned perspective is in a folder, you can go to the folder settings , click the edit button, and delete it from the folder. Deleting it from the folder will delete it completely, not just from the folder.