An Actuate BIRT dashboard is a self-contained web application that delivers business performance data in interactive charts, cross tab tables, formatted text, and Adobe Flash visualizations. You can download, explore, and monitor data displayed on your personal dashboard. Use the browser-based dashboard tools to organize dashboards, subscribe to shared dashboards, or build new ones.

Dashboards display a variety of gadgets that enable users to find and analyze data. Data that appears in a dashboard is either queried on demand or cached as BIRT data objects for fast analysis.

Network content with a URL address, such as images, videos, text, web pages, and Google gadget files, can display on dashboards. The network content and business data link together for enhanced analysis and data presentation. Figure 4‑1 shows a dashboard in Information Console.

This section describes how to view and subscribe to shared dashboard files. For information about building and sharing BIRT dashboard files, see Building BIRT Dashboards.