About BIRT dashboard functionality
Users interact with dashboard data using the gadgets on the dashboard. Each gadget is a self-contained data viewer. For example, gadgets can display interactive BIRT reports, tables, cross tabs, and charts. Other gadgets enable users to display selected data such as a list of customers or a calendar. External resources can display on the dashboard, such as HTML pages, images and web services.
Actuate BIRT dashboards support the following user activities:
Building web-based reports and performance indicators using charts, tables, cross tabs, and Adobe Flash objects
Reviewing multiple BIRT files at the same time
Viewing part of a BIRT file instead of the entire file
Displaying and linking multiple data sources
Interacting with data by launching browser-based tools such as BIRT Data Analyzer
Keeping information up-to-date using refresh timers
Exploring and exporting data using filtering, drill-down analysis, and drill‑through hyperlinks
Mixing external web services with existing business data
Users can analyze cross tab gadgets using BIRT Data Analyzer. For more information about maximizing gadgets, see
Maximizing gadgets later in this section.
The BIRT 360 option for BIRT iHub is required to open dashboard and gadget files. Some optional features require appropriate BIRT iHub options. For example, to use browser-based tools such as BIRT Interactive Viewer for iHub or BIRT Data Analyzer, the appropriate BIRT iHub options are required. Dashboard and gadget files use the same file access privileges as other Actuate files.