Working with Dashboards

This topic describes how to create and save dashboards, and ways that you can modify and manipulate them.

Creating a Dashboard

You can construct a OmniSci Immerse dashboard following these steps:

  1. Start a New Dashboard
  2. Add One or More Charts
  3. Title and Save the Dashboard

Once you save the dashboard, you can share it with other OmniSci users.

Starting a New Dashboard

Connect to OmniSci Immerse by pointing a web browser to port 6273 on your OmniSciDB server. When you launch OmniSci Immerse, the landing page is a list of saved dashboards. You click New Dashboard in the upper right to configure a custom dashboard.

Adding a Chart

To add a chart, you click Add Chart, choose a chart type, set dimensions and measures, then click Apply. For more information on creating charts, see OmniSci Immerse Chart Types.

To create a chart:

  1. Click Add Chart.
  2. Choose a Data Source. For example, UFO_Sightings.
  3. Choose a chart type. For example, Bar.
  4. Set the Dimension. For example, country.
  5. Set the Measure. For example, COUNT # Records.
  6. Click Apply.
sightings-by-country.png

Removing a Chart

To remove a chart:

  1. Hover the mouse over the chart.
  2. In the upper-right corner of the chart, click the More Options icon, and then click Remove Chart.
csv-download-chart.png

Titling and Saving a Dashboard

To title and save a dashboard:

  1. Click the title area.
  2. Type a title.
  3. Click Save.

Titling and Saving a Dashboard

To title and save a dashboard:

  1. Click the title area.
  2. Type a title.
  3. Click Save.

Dark Mode

You can change your OmniSci interface to display in Dark Mode.

To display OmniSci Immerse in Dark Mode, click the User icon in the upper right and choose SWITCH TO DARK MODE.

Light Mode

Dark Mode can enhance the contrast and readability of your charts. I am joking, of course. You use Dark Mode because it looks awesome.

Dark Mode

To change back to light mode, click the User icon in the upper right and choose SWITCH TO LIGHT MODE.

Usage Notes:

  • The theme setting is saved on the browser you are currently using. The setting does not affect other machines or other browsers you might use.
  • When you create a map, the theme defaults to Current Immerse Theme. This is necessary to automatically update a map when you toggle themes. You can still explicitly choose Light Mode or Dark Mode, but if you do so the map stays in that theme, regardless of the Immerse theme. Existing maps have a hard coded theme and are currently going to stay that way. OmniSci recommends that you use Current Immerse Theme, unless you want the map to always display in Light Mode or Dark Mode.
  • You can also configure the theme in the servers.json/servers.local.json file. Add a new key for theme and set it to dark. If you set no key, the default is light.
  • The system theme setting only takes effect if you have never switched themes. Once you choose your own preferred theme, it always overrides the system setting.

Modifying a Dashboard

Moving and Resizing Charts

To move a chart within a dashboard, click the title bar and drag the chart to the new location. If there is already at that location, it moves aside.

To resize the chart, click on the lower right corner of the chart and drag to change the size.

moving charts.gif

Duplicating a Chart

You can add a duplicate of an existing chart to your dashboard. To add a duplicate chart:

  1. Hover the mouse over the chart you want to duplicate.
  2. In the upper-right corner of the chart, click the More Options icon, and then click Duplicate Chart.
csv-download-chart.png

A duplicate of the chart is created with the same title, with (Copy) appended. Multiple duplicates result in (Copy 2), (Copy 3), and so on, appended to the original chart title.

When you add a duplicate chart to the dashboard, the dashboard is marked unsaved; to save the duplicate chart, you must save the dashboard.

Cross-Filtering

When you add more than one chart to a dashboard, filters on one chart affect all other charts on the dashboard.

For example, the dashboard below shows UFO Sightings in various countries.

ufos-all-countries.png

If you click the bar for Great Britain (gb) on the “Sightings by Country” chart, the other charts are filtered, as well.

ufos-gb-only.png

For more examples, see Using Filters.

Multisource Dashboards

You can choose different data sources for individual charts on your dashboard. This lets you look for visual correlations in datasets that are not directly connected.

For example, these charts compare immigration rates to UFO sightings. Glascow looks suspicious.

msd.png

Linking Charts

You can link map charts on a Dashboard so that if you zoom or pan on one of the charts, any linked charts zoom or pan in the same way. Synchronizing makes it easier to coordinate the zoom and focus of different charts, so you do not have to manipulate them individually to get the views that you want.

Charts that can be linked have a link icon in the upper left corner. Clicking it syncs the map with any other maps enabled for sync. You can unlink a map by clicking the icon again.

3_sync-charts-1.png

If you change the zoom or pan of a linked map, any other linked maps change in the same way. For example, the two maps below are linked, indicated by the grayed link that appears in the upper left of the map. The zoom and focus of the two maps are different at this point.

3_sync-charts-2.png

Clicking Zoom out on the map on the right not only syncs the zoom of the other map, it also pans that map so they both have the same focus.

3_sync-charts-3.png

Downloading Chart Data in CSV Format

You can download data in .csv file format for individual charts on your dashboard. You can view the CSV files in a typical spreadsheet application, like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.

The downloaded data matches exactly the data represented in the chart at the time of export; this includes any filters, binning, domain settings, or other settings. To download chart data in CSV format:

  1. Hover the mouse over the chart.
  2. In the upper-right corner of the chart, click the More Options icon, and then click Download CSV.
csv-download-chart.png

The CSV file is downloaded to the default downloads folder for your browser.

Notes:

  • You cannot download a CSV file for Choropleth, Geo Heatmap, Pointmap, or Scatter Plot charts.
  • Any nested data (for example, a histogram with stacked data) is flattened.

Refreshing a Dashboard

If you update your dataset, you can update your dashboard by using the Refresh icon in Immerse.

  1. Click Refresh.dashboard_refresh.png
  2. Choose Refresh Now.refresh_now.png

If you have streaming data continually updating your dataset, you can set an interval to automatically refresh your dashboard.

  1. Click Refresh.
  2. Click Auto Refresh.
  3. Choose an interval (for example, 2 Minutes).

To turn off Auto Refresh, set the interval to Off.

Note Using your browser refresh button ends your session and requires you to log in again.

Duplicating a Dashboard

You can duplicate a dashboard and use it as a starting point for a different dashboard.

To duplicate a dashboard:

  1. Click Duplicate.

    2. A new, identical dashboard is created, with (Copy) appended to the original dashboard name.

  2. Click the Pencil icon to edit the name of the dashboard.
  3. Click Save.

    ufos-duplicate.png

Important Use Duplicate to create a copy of a dashboard; do not rename a dashboard and save it. If you rename a dasboard and then save it, the original dashboard is overwritten with the renamed dashboard, and no duplicate is created.

Sharing a Dashboard

You can share a saved dashboard with specific users or roles.

To share a dashboard:

  1. Click Share.
  2. Click the Search field to browse a list of users and roles. You can also type the first few characters of a user or role name to search.
  3. Click to select a user or role. To remove a user or role, click the x at the end of the row.
  4. Click the Copy icon at the bottom to copy the dashboard URL.
  5. Click Apply.
  6. Send the URL to the selected users and let them now they are authorized to use the dashboard.

When viewing the dashboard, you can click the Share icon at any time to add or remove users.

On the Dashboards page, the Shared column lets you distinguish between dashboards you have shared versus dashboards shared with you by others.

Dashboard Shared By MeDashboards you have shared
Dashboard Shared with MeDashboards others have shared with you

Exporting and Importing a Dashboard Definition

You can use omnisql to export a dashboard definition as a JSON file, then import the dashboard definition to another OmniSci instance.

To export a dashboard definition:

  1. Start omnisql.

  2. Enter the following backslash command:

    \export_dashboard "<dashboard-name>" <file-path>

    Where <dashboard-name> is the name of the dashboard in Immerse and <file-path> is the name and location to create the JSON file.

    For example:

    omnisql> \export_dashboard "Sample Dashboard" /home/omnisci/exported_dash.json

To import a dashboard definition:

  1. Copy the export file to a location available to another OmniSci instance.

  2. Enter the following backslash command.

    \import_dashboard "<dashboard-name>" <file-path>

    Where <file-path> is the location and name of a file exported from another OmniSci instance.

    For example:

    omnisql> \import_dashboard "Sample Dashboard" /home/omnisci/my_dashboard.json

Deleting a Dashboard

To delete a dashboard:

  1. Click Dashboards.
  2. Mouse over the dashboard you want to delete.
  3. Click X at the end of the dashboard row.