VISUAL Message Center Dashboards is a  powerful and flexible component of the VISUAL Message Center monitoring solution. It contains many interactive features and provides you with the power to view and interpret your essential Business and IT data in the manner that serves you best. VISUAL Message Center Dashboards gives users more say in the content and design of their dashboards and tables.

Would you like to be able to add images and icons to your dashboards? Or perhaps a hyperlink or a URL to view the company results page or home page? Why not go even further and add a URL snapshot of a Web site as a thumbnail or include the whole site? Or maybe add labels to better group and organize your dashboards? You can even add tables to your dashboards, thus combining the benefits of both dashboards and tables within one clearly managed screen.

Only a click away
Any of your Business Views created in VISUAL Message Center SmartConsole can be incorporated, adding dimensions to the capabilities of Dashboards. Add individual Business Views or entire Business View branches which can be collapsed or expanded exactly as they would in the VISUAL Message Center SmartConsole or the VISUAL Message Center Web SmartConsole. Business Views can change color in an instant to alert you to any important change in health.

Combine this with the set of nearly 8,000 status icons - including the possibility to use customized icons - available for use with Business Views, plus the option to add transparency to dashboard elements, and you have a monitoring tool that is as versatile as it is elegant.

Just the way you like it
VISUAL Message Center Dashboards agility is perfectly demonstrated by the ability to take total control of the layout of dashboard elements. Quickly organize your dashboards employing the auto layout or completely customize your layout, rearranging and then snapping elements to a grid at the click of a button.

Take advantage of all these great features to create your custom dashboards and tables as you wish, complete with all the information and links you need to provide instant access to all those vital details you cannot afford to miss.

Default dashboards
VISUAL Message Center Dashboards is shipped with an extensive range of dashboards designed to provide essential data 'out of the box'.  Dashboards designed to monitor SLA Analytics, Universal Transactions and Web Transactions, and a variety of security packages are all included and preconfigured to work directly with their ThinAgent counterparts in VISUAL Message Center ThinkServer. It has never been easier to remotely monitor such a wide range of events with such a minimum degree of set up.

Versatile tables
SQL Joins the party. There are three types of tables available in VISUAL Message Center Dashboards: wide, narrow, and SQL query. Each provides a unique way to view information in table format, further demonstrating the versatility of the Dashboard solution. SQL Query Tables allow you to display the result of any SQL Query against any database which you have access to. This delivers superb flexibility through integrated data from multiple sources. Furthermore the Query can be modified using easy-to-use, but powerful, Python scripting.

Travel through time
You can revisit the past with dashboards tables which show you exactly how they looked at a specific moment in time. This is not science fiction, but an immensely powerful investigative tool for analyzing specific events in depth long after they occurred.

Do the math
Totalitzer options in tables provide instant results for a range of mathematical functions. Add a totalizer field to the foot of a column to display totals, averages, minimum, or maximum values for a specific set of data on the fly. You can even define the value using Python script. Partial percentages of the total sum can also be included in an extra column inserted directly adjacent to the totalizer column. It all adds up to an invaluable feature for when your operator needs important answers instantly and in real time.

Bigger is better
What happens when you create a host of wonderful tables only to find that they are brimming with so much vital information that you simply can't fit them all snugly on a single useful dashboard? VISUAL Message Center Dashboards provides not one but two intuitive solutions: Table paging allows you to specify if you want to see the data in one single page or over several. Simply specify how many rows you want each page to display and VISUAL Message Center Dashboards will do the rest. If you want your data to be displayed constantly on one page but don't have the space, auto-scrolling is your solution. It does exactly what the name suggests: automatically scrolling the table contents up and down so you can view huge quantities of information on your big plasma display without having to lift a finger.

Scripting abilities
VISUAL Message Center Dashboards comes complete with potent scripting abilities giving you many creative and functional possibilities. Python script can be added to dashboards and tables. Scripting can be added to tables in order to remove or change rows, use highlighting, colors, fonts, and more. Scripts can even span several columns. The options are almost endless. Scripts can be written to facilitate comparing averages and making computations.

Lists can be filtered to show only the information you need to see. For example you may only be interested in dashboards that produce data from your Windows or iSeries servers. With our filtering options, the choice is yours. Dashboards can also be set to show or hide desired values. If it's not important, you don't need to see it.

Exporting
Capture the data as it happens and then share it. VISUAL Message Center Dashboards makes it easier than ever to export a dashboard or table right out of its respective viewer. There are now even more format options available. Ensuring you export exactly what you need when you need it. Snapshots of dashboards can be exported to PDF or PNG format at the click of a button on the Dashboard Viewer toolbar, while tables can be similarly exported as a PDF or Excel spreadsheet.

Pay for what you use
Licensing for Dashboards is based on the VISUAL Message Center Portal. This means you only pay for the number of licenses required. You simply select the number of nominal users you need, and don't pay for any more.