Overview

The Dashboard Configuration (DASHCON™) toolkit supports the rapid creation and management of specialized dashboards that can be populated with reports and scoring models and accessed through the Internet using a web browser.  Dashboards can be configured to include reports obtained through the querying of enterprise data sources, or configured to provide access to scoring models used in analysis and decision making. The scoring models can be used to baseline decision making capabilities, to establish the relationship between the baseline and peer performance, and to analyze contributing factors as a means for improving future performance.

The basic operating concept of the DASHCON™ technology involves the participation of two user communities.  The first community is responsible for authoring scoring models or reports that are of interest to end users.  As the second user community, end users subscribe to the previously authored scoring models and reports and organize them in a dashboard.

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The DASHCON™ Architecture

The DASHCON™ toolkit eliminates the need for programming expertise in constructing a dashboard or in publishing reports and scoring model results using a dashboard.  DASHCON™ toolkit users define the variables used in the scoring model and the data source for those variables.  The data sources may include a file, a database, a data mining model, or an end user entering data directly.  DASHCON™ users also define the candidate report types that will be used to display the results from the model run.  Report definition options are automatically restricted to the options most appropriate for the type of data to be included. 

Users can also define permissions that restrict access to data to specified classes of users.  End users with the appropriate privileges can then create a dashboard, select from several layout options in configuring the dashboard's display, subscribe to the reports or scoring models to which they have access, and organize how reports and models are displayed in the dashboard using simple point-and-click commands. For reports or scoring models that require user input, the required entry fields can be automatically configured based on data type (e.g., Yes/No, integer, real number, date, select list). Users can also choose among different graph types for displaying generated reports.