Dashboard - Alternative to analyse. Full screen of widget

Hi,

It occured to me today whilst discussing a dashboard with an end user that the aim of a dashboard is to get as much info on screen as possible, to show relationships with the data. However sometimes the user cannot see all the nuiances of the data which then get the end user to want to make the dashboard much bigger.

This means widgets tend to be smaller (depending on users screen resolution, i.e. Tablet versus PC ultra wide monitor). What would be good is the ability to make a widget bigger to view in the form of a modal pop up window within the dashboard.

The challenges currently are:

  1. Not all users have the same screen resolution.
    We have to make the dashboards much bigger than needs be to support smaller screen sizes. Due to the dynamic screen resolution nature of Phocas, we are missing a trick here. The dynamic nature of dashboards doesnt help if the charts become too difficult to read.
  2. Reduce development/tickets.
    This is the best of both worlds, it allows the user to see the chart full screen without the need to redo development to support multi-screen resolutions. If these are master dashboards it removes the need for tickets to adjust dashboards.
  3. Widgets using “run as”.
    The final point is we have the run as command on a widget to allow end users to see data which they normally would not have access to the underlying database. Currently the only way to make full screen is by use of the “analyse” button, however, if the widget is on “run as”, this option is removed as it takes you to the source DB.
  4. Titles.
    A more minor point but still worth mentioning, when you DO click “analyse”, the title of the widget is missing, this can become confusing if a user has clicked on multiple widgets to analyse.

The solution could be as follows (sorry for poor Photoshop skills!):


Notice how “Source System Trend” is cramped due to screen resolution challenges, although we could change the line structure to “scroll”, this would lose some of the widgets from inital display and end users may not realise there is more available. What would be good is if there was a “maximise” button which would make this chart fullscreen without the need to go to another tab:

This would then show the widget full screen within the dashboard:

You would then have a “collapse or restore” button to put the chart back into the standard view.

This solution solves the above points as:

  1. Resolution is no longer an issue
  2. On dashboard fits all screens and no longer requires further development/tickets.
  3. Run As widgets will allow full screen without the need to worry about analyse and underlying DB access.
  4. When going full screen we still retain the title and provides context to the widget being seen.

I welcome any feedback on this proposal.

@hamish.keith - FYI.

Kind Regards,

Jon

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