Reporting in Team Foundation Server 2010 – Part 3: SharePoint Dashboards: SharePoint Server dashboard customization

In my last post, I covered the out-of-the-box experience with SharePoint Server dashboard. Let’s look at the next item on the list, customizing the dashboard:

  • SharePoint Dashboards
    • SharePoint Server dashboard
      • Out-of-the-box experience
      • Customizing the dashboard
      • Creating a team dashboard
    • Windows SharePoint Services/SharePoint Foundation dashboard

SharePoint Server dashboard: Customizing the dashboard

The Bugs dashboard provides a great picture on how we are doing on bugs:

image

Say, I want to customize ‘Active Bugs by Assignment’ report to include resolved bugs as well. I can click on the title of this report and then select to open the report in Microsoft Excel from the menu to start editing the report in Excel.

image

image

image

The spreadsheet has a data connection to the Analysis Services cube on TFS to get the report data, so we need to allow this connection in the security warning using the ‘Options…’ button:

image

image

Now, all I need to do is change my State filter on the report to include Resolved state as well. The chart will refresh to show both Active and Resolved bugs.

image

image

image

This is standard Excel charting functionality, so it can be modified easily to change colors, chart type etc.

image

Now that report looks the way I want, I can publish this back to my dashboard using Excel Services. Since I am updating an existing report, I’ll overwrite the file when I publish this. I can save it as a copy and show it as a separate report on the dashboard as well and I’ll cover that in my next post.

image

image

image

image

Excel Services caches the report, so if I want to see my changes reflected on the dashboard page immediately I can reload the workbook.

image

image

My dashboard shows Active and Resolved bugs now – that was easy!!

image

Next up is creating a team dashboard. If you have questions or feedback please leave me a comment or send me an email at sunder.raman at microsoft.com