Some Common Dashboard Questions
Are Dashboard charts shared or personal?
The queries against which charts are built are located in a PHP file on the server and are available to all Dashboard users. However, the exact name and format of a given chart as displayed in a pane is userspecific. The name/format of a chart is defined by its properties (or attributes). Thus, when a user changes the properties of a chart, those changes will apply only to their own Dashboard client.
How do I create a chart?
When you create a chart, you are basically creating a named instance of the query behind it, whose properties you are then free to configure individually. For instructions on creating a new chart, see the Supportworks ESP Administration Guide > Dashboard: Real-Time Data Display > Creating and Configuring a Chart.
How do I get a chart into one of the panes?
Charts exist independently of the panes that display them. You have to select, from a menu of available charts, the one you want to see in a given pane. For instructions, see the Supportworks ESP Administration Guide > Dashboard: Real-Time Data Display > Switching to a Different or Null Chart in a Pane.
How do I edit a chart's properties?
For instructions on modifying an existing chart, see the Supportworks ESP Administration Guide > Dashboard: Real-Time Data Display > Creating and Configuring a Chart.
Where are a chart's properties stored?
Chart properties are stored on the client computer in a file called swdbconf.xml, whose default location is C:\Program Files\Hornbill\Supportworks Client\. The initial default set of properties is stored on the server in a file called swdashconf.xml and will have been downloaded and renamed as swdbconf.xml on each client machine during each user's first Dashboard login.
What does the "Download Default Configuration from Server" menu command do?
This option on the Edit menu downloads the file (swdashconf.xml) containing the default chart properties from the server and saves it locally on the client machine as the file swdbconf.xml. This would overwrite the existing file of the same name, thus resetting the chart properties on that particular client machine to the initial defaults.
How do I add a new query to the Dashboard application?
For instructions on adding a new query to the current shared pool of queries on the server, see the Supportworks ESP Customisation Guide > Functional Scripting > Customising Dashboard Charts > To Create a New Dashboard Query.
How do I modify an existing query in the Dashboard application?
For instructions on modifying a query in the current shared pool of queries on the server, see the Supportworks ESP Customisation Guide > Functional Scripting > Customising Dashboard Charts > Modifying an Existing Dashboard Query.
Why don't my charts auto-refresh more frequently as I increase the refresh rate?
If your charts continue displaying the same data for a while after an auto-refresh, this would mean that you have set the refresh time to a value less than the currently defined period between successive query submissions. Each SQL query used by Dashboard charts is separately defined in a PHP script file called dash_queries.php located on the server, and each of these definitions includes a specified value for the period between submissions. By default, the period is set to 500 seconds for each query, but you can modify these values by using a text editor.
You basically need to be aware that whereas the auto-refresh setting selected via the Dashboard's View menu governs the timing of data acquisition from the server to your Dashboard display, the period values specified in the PHP script govern the timing of data acquisition from the database to the server. With this understanding, you can see that there is no point making the screen auto-refresh more frequent than the database query submissions that collect the changing data in the first place. So, if you wish to increase the frequency of data updates as seen on your Dashboard charts, you first have to reduce the period values in the PHP script to an appropriate amount (bearing in mind the load on the database server) and then reduce the auto-refresh setting to a value just above those.
To find out the locations of the period values within the PHP script, see the Supportworks ESP Customisation Guide > Functional Scripting > Customising Dashboard Queries > Modifying an Existing Dashboard Query > To Modify the Query Interval.