Quadbase

EspressDashboard (EDAB) provides a central server-side repository that allows collaborative development and management within organizations. The Organizer interface allows developers and administrators to create, modify, and secure queries and charts. The Organizer can be launched as an application on the client or directly from the server via a Web browser. It serves both as a central repository of all EDAB files (charts, reports, dashboards, maps...), as well as a platform for developing charts. Chart developers can launch the Chart Designer from the Organizer.

In addition, within the Organizer, Administrators can setup data sources and database connections for developers. Privileges and security are also administered through the Organizer, allowing folders, charts, maps, reports, dashboards, and data to be secured.

Two Publishing Options

Reports and charts in EDAB can be quickly published to Web environments in a couple of ways.

EspressDashboard provides a dashboard portal for end users. This customizable HTML interface called the "Menu Page" allows users to run dashboards. Dashboards in the central repository are automatically published to the portal and security roles are enforced throughout. In addition, dashboards in the repository can be run via HTTP URL calls. Users can request a dashboard directly and the dashboard will be streamed back to the client.

EspressDashboard (EDAB) provides several ad hoc reporting and query features that allow users to create a wide range of queries and reports through a zero-client browser interface called the QuickDesigner. This interface allows users to make simple reports for the dashboards and offers an alternative way to make charts.

Unlike some other tools, EDAB provides a simple query interface that is geared towards business users, not high-level analysts. With these tools users can create queries, build reports and charts from any data source, and publish the results without any training.

The data view interface shields users from database complexity by allowing administrators to pre-define tables, joins, fields, and even filters creating in effect a local schema. End-users can then select (typically aliased) fields and perform ordering, sorting, filtering, and aggregation without any knowledge of the underlying database structures.

The QuickDesigner component is a zero-client browser-based ad hoc reporting and query tool that allows users to query data views and quickly turn the results into a finished report. The QuickDesigner can run reports on any data source in the Organizer and offers users a simple point and click interface to build queries.

Users can arrange, sort, and perform dynamic filtering on the data. Once users finish creating a query, the QuickDesigner provides formatting options that allow the query to be turned into a polished report.

Data Visualization and BI Dashboard/Reporting on iPhones, iPads, and Android devices

Because of the strong support for Android browsers and Safari by EspressDashboard and EspressReport ES, iPhone, iPad and Android device users can now access critical information about their organizations anytime, anywhere on-the-go in a timely manner without compromise. There is no App to download or install. Just use the mobile browser and you can immediately spring into action. The comprehensive end-to-end security/privilege and role-based security feature ensure that the right information is delivered to the right users at the right time. Unlike some of the competitive products, only the right amount of data that matches the filter criteria is delivered by the server. Hence, the load on the wireless network is minimized.

Key Features:

• All existing reports, charts, maps, dashboards developed on EspressReport ES and EspressDashboard can be run on the iPhone, the iPad, and Android devices as is without modifications and reworks.
• Unlimited drill-down on dashboards to reports, charts, maps, or to another dashboard.
• Data can be filtered dynamically via shared/global parameters on the dashboard.
• Access KPI and critical information anytime anywhere securely without taxing the wireless networks.
• Published reports, charts, and maps can be viewed on iPhone, iPad, and Android, essentially providing an on-the-go reporting portal.

EspressDashboard is a web-based enterprise business intelligence (BI) dashboard publishing system.  It makes it easy for you to create compelling dashboard presentations.  Using any of the charts, reports, and maps deployed in the system, users can easily put together key pieces of pertinent information into an easy to read, custom, dashboard briefing.

The dashboard presentation takes all the selected reports, charts, and maps and displays them in a single page, giving users a quick snapshot of the data that is most important to them.  Common filters can be applied to all dashboard elements, allowing users to quickly "dial-in" to specific ranges of data.  Drill-down can be added to any of the dashboard items, allowing users to quickly drill into important figures for more detailed information.

Unlike many other dashboard solutions, dashboards in EspressDashboard can be created and deployed without any administrative or development overhead.  The integrated Dashboard Builder interface, provides all the tools users need to create custom dashboards in a simple thin-client, point and click environment.  Completed dashboards can be quickly published and shared with other users.

EDAB supports two types of KPI alerts : alert watching and alert monitoring.

Alerts are basically conditions for KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). If the KPI alert conditions are met (for example, the KPI value is too low or too high), the alert will 'trigger.'  You can configure alerts for charts, reports, or maps and then you can monitor or watch the alert.

Watching alert is as easy as arranging the templates (report, charts, etc.) into a dashboard and then choosing which alerts you want to watch.  Next, you just watch the dashboard or publish it and allow somebody else to watch it. If at least one of the watched alerts triggered, the report, chart, or map will start flashing and the value that was triggered the alert will be highlighted.

You can also set up alert monitoring which notifies you about triggered alerts even when there is nobody  physically watching the dashboard. When a monitored alert is triggered, the report/chart will be exported and either saved to disk, uploaded to an FTP, or sent by email to pre-defined email recipients. Also, every time an alert is evaluated, a new log record is added to Alert Monitoring Log. Log record is created even when no alerts were triggered during the evaluation which allows you to watch all of your KPIs over long periods of time.

EspressDashboard supports interactive maps in addition to traditional reporting, adding yet another powerful dimension to data visualization/presentation, and user-experience enhancement.  Visualization of data in geographical and spatial formats can be very useful for analysis and decision support.  One can easily think of many common and diverse questions that can be answered with enhanced visualization with maps: How is my sales coverage?  Where do I get the most revenue?  What is the demographic distribution? How is my political campaign doing geographically?  What is my (global) company's human capital distribution?  Where do the visitors to my web site come from?

EspressDashboard makes it easy for you to make interactive maps for reporting and include them in dashboards.  The two types of maps supported are Google map and SVG maps.
With high quality imagery and a very wide zoom, Google Maps are useful for displaying exact locations on maps.  You can use geocoding to locate buildings/cities on the map knowing just their addresses.  Usage of Google Maps is limited by Google Maps Terms of Service (To see the current version visit Google Maps API Terms of Service).  Google Maps can contain Tool-tips and Drill-downs.  Tool-tips are small reports or charts, which are displayed on mouse over a map marker.  They can be used to display brief summary information related to the selected location.  Drill-downs are links to parameterized charts, reports or other maps, when the user clicks on a map marker.  They are usually used to display more detailed information about the selected location.

The other supported map format is SVG.  An SVG map, as the name implies, displays the map with SVG image.  EspressDashboard distributes several SVG image files of the continents of the world, which you can use to customize for your application. You can also use your own SVG images like floor plans, seating plans, etc.  Instead of displaying tool-tips on map points, SVG maps work with areas. You can color code areas on the map based on the range of data defined for the area of interest.  Drill-down to charts, reports, or other maps is supported in the same way as in Google maps.
You can mix and match map types for drill-down. In other words, a Google map can drill-down to another Google map or SVG map, and vice versa.

Data sources supported for both types of maps are same as those for reports, i.e. JDBC compliant databases, text files, Java classes, Excel spreadsheets, WSDL and Salesforce SOAP services, XML files, JDNI, and EBJ.

View Map Examples

EspressDashboard is designed to leverage users' existing infrastructure investments. It deploys completely within Java EE application environments, with no separate server-side application processes. The following diagram illustrates the basic architecture of an EDAB deployment.

The EDAB server deploys as a servlet collection within an application server/servlet & JSP container. Other servlets/JSPs can be deployed in the server to connect to and retrieve information from the EDAB server (like file names, user information, and privilege/security information). Database buffering allows report data to be re-used (within user-supplied parameters) for faster generation.

EDAB can be deployed in a single server or in a clustered environment. When running in a cluster, a load balancer routes all incoming client requests to cluster members, while maintaining a common back-end file structure. This configuration option allows EDAB to scale to high-availability deployments with thousands of users.

Most server functions can be administered remotely, using a browser-based interface. This allows administrators to manage users/groups, and configure the server from anywhere using only a Web browser.

End to End Security Management

EspressDashboard provides a powerful security framework to handle user/group privileges as well as report page and element level security. EDAB binds privileges to report developers using an ownership model that allows security to be enforced automatically as reporting implementations grow and change.

Users can integrate custom security models and users/groups with EDAB. EDAB allows direct integration with users in LDAP systems and stored in relation databases. In addition, EDAB provides open server extensions that allow users to programmatically integrate any custom security model with the EDAB architecture. Beyond privileges, security features are fully enforced in published dashboards.