Creating and Editing Dashboards

Dashboards can display large amounts of information in a concise form, to give you a quick overview of its topics. In SAP Solution Manager 7.1, SAP provides a dashboard framework. Dashboards comprise a set of apps which each output information about an aspect of the topic (see Dashboards und Dashboard Apps).

SAP delivers dashboards for the most important topics, but you can also create your own.

The creation and editing of dashboards is described here. This tool comprises the following functions:

Create dashboards and edit existing dashboards; the attributes you can assign to a dashboard are described later in this section
Delete dashboards
Upload dashboard layout stylesheets, and assign them to dashboards

Features

To call Dashboard Management, proceed as follows:

In the SAP Easy Acess menu, choose Dashboard Management Tool. The entry is in the folder SAP_SM_DASHBOARDS_ADMIN in your user menu, if you have this role.

Note
This entry is in your Favorites if you have the role SAP_SM_DASHBOARDS_ADMIN.

End of the note.
To put this entry in your SAP Easy Acess menu Favorites manually, proceed as follows:
1. In the SAP Easy Access menu, call Favorites Add Other Objects .
2. From the list in the Restrictions screen, choose Web-Dynpro Applications.
3. On the Web Dynpro Application screen, in the Web Dynpro Application field, enter the name dashboard_management.
4. Enter a description, for example Dashboard Management Tool, and complete the creation of the new entry.

Start the application by double-clicking on the entry. You are now in the Dashboard Management screen. The screen has 3 sections:

Commands
Dashboard Management contains the commands Create Dashboard, Edit and Delete. The last 2 are only available when you have selected an existing, not locked dashboard.
Navigation bar

The existing dashboards are in the navigation bar at the left-hand side. Dashboards delivered by SAP are flagged with the (Locked) icon. You cannot change or delete these dashboards.

Choose a dashboard, to display its details in the Dashboard Details subscreen.

Dashboard Details

When you choose a dashboard, the following attributes are displayed in the Dashboard Details subscreen (when you create a new dashboard or edit an existing one, you can set or change these attributes):

Attribute	Description
Dashboard Alias	The dashboard alias is the technical name which uniquely identifies the dashboard.
Title	The title of the dashboard is displayed in the tab and in the dashboard.
Description	The description states the topic and the planned use of the dashboard.
Authorization Group	The authorization group ensures that only selected users can display the dashboard. Roles delivered by SAP contain display authorization for apps with the authorization group Public.
Category	The category specifies the topic to which the user assigns the dashboard; a dashboard can belong to several categories. When an app is added to a dashboard (see Konfiguring Dashboards) only apps which belong to the topic of this dashboard and belong to the same category, are displayed. Note You can also specify a pattern, instead of one or more explicit categories, to specify several categories. Specify the pattern of the technical names of the category (e.g. `CIO*` to specify all categories whose technical name begins with `CIO`). End of the note.
Customizing Request	To transport a dashboard in your system landscape, you must create a Customizing request before you create it. The dashboard transport rules are those for transporting apps, except that you do not need a Workbench request to transport dashboards. For further information about transporting apps, see Registering User Apps in the Dashboard Framework.
Type	The Type of a dashboard specifies whether changes which a user makes to a dashboard are visible to other users. There are three Types: General A general dashboard has only one instance, so when a user changes it (e.g. add or remove an app), this is visible to all users. Personalized A personalized dashboard has an instance for each user, so when a user makes changes, they do not affect the dashboards of other users. User-Defined (BAdI) For user-defined dashboards, a BAdI determines which user groups have their own instance. For example, each department of a company could have its own dashboard instance of an application. Note Use the enhancement spot `IF_DFWK_DASHBOARD_STARTUP` (package AI_SOLMAN_DASHBOARDS Embedded Packages AI_DSH_CORE Enhancements Enhancement Spots IF_DFWK_DASHBOARD_STARTUP ). This enhancement spot contains the BAdI definition `IF_DFWK_ALIAS_USAGE_BADI` for determining the dashboard instance. End of the note.
Initialization BAdI	An initialization BAdI ensures that if a dashboard contains no apps (which is typically the case when the dashboard is first called), a BAdI is called. This BAdI can, for example, ensure that the dashboard is then filled with its apps. Note Use the enhancement spot above, `IF_DFWK_DASHBOARD_STARTUP` to implement the BAdI. This enhancement spot contains the BAdI definition `IF_DFWK_DASHBOARD_STARTUP_DEF` to initialize a dashboard. End of the note.
Style Sheet	Select a style sheet to determine the layout of the dashboard. You can also specify your own layout, by selecting New after the drop-down list, and entering an archive (file name enhancement `zip`) with the binary files of the style sheet, next to the name and description of the style sheet. For more information about creating a layout, see below, under Working with Stylesheets. You must specify a development package for the style sheet, and you can specify a Workbench transport request when you create a new style sheet, as for a dashboard. Note If you have uploaded a style sheet for a dashboard, it is then available to all other dashboards. End of the note.

Note Note

When you save, the direct link to the dashboard is in the attributes list.

End of the note.

Working with Stylesheets

This procedure describes how you can create your own stylesheet with your own background image. Proceed as follows:

Use a stylesheet delivered by SAP (such as Default) as a template. The corresponding files are in the MIME Repository of your SAP Solution Manager system. To do this, call transaction SE80, choose the MIME Repository button, and expand the path SAP PUBLIC BC DASHBOARD sap.e2erep.dfwk Flash Stylesheets
. The default stylesheet, for example, is under Default. There are usually three files there:
- The actual stylesheet (file name extension css)
- A Flash file (file name extension swf), which was generated from the stylesheet
- An image file (file name extension jpg), which is used as the background of the dashboard
To now create your own stylesheet based on a template of this kind, download the CSS file that you want to use as a template by calling the context menu for the desired file and choosing Upload/Download Download .
Edit the file with any CSS editor or text editor, and save your changes.

Example
If, for example, you want to change the background image, change the path for backgroundImage, by changing the last two parts of the path to <style sheet>/<picture file>. You also need to ensure that you have the deisred background image available as a jpg file.

End of the example.
Generate a Flash file from the changed stylesheet. You can do this, for example, with Adobe Flex Builder. Note that you require your own license for the relevant programs; these are not part of the SAP product and SAP does not provide support for them.
Create an archive (file name extension zip) containing the stylesheet that you created, the Flash file that you generated and the desired backround image.
To upload the files from this archive into the MIME Repository and assign them to a dashboard, proceed as described in the table under Stylesheet (see above). As the name of the stylesheet, enter the name that you have already specified in the path for backgroundImage.