Modules for Dashboards

neg177
neg177
in Modeling

Hi, 

 

I have a question about best practices for setting up Modules for Dashboards. Currently we have LI's from different modules that we would like to display on one Dashboard. Is it best practices to create a Output module for a Dashboard and that will have all the different LI's in one place from those different modules? Would like to know best practices on this situation. 

 

Thank you 

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Best Answers

  • neg177
    neg177
    Answer ✓

    Thank you so much! very helpful

  • ryan_kohn
    ryan_kohn
    Answer ✓

    Glad to hear it @neg177! If you felt my post solved your ask, can you ahead and mark it as a solution? Thanks!

Answers

  • ryan_kohn
    ryan_kohn

    It sounds like you're already familiar with the DISCO standard, but I'll include a description of Output module best practices here for reference:

    Similar to Input modules, [Output modules] are, for the most part, designed for end users to consume the calculations. To provide the best user experience, these modules may include the separate dimensions (that may have been combined in the Calculation modules). Using the optimization techniques above gives you the capacity to provide this flexibility. In an ideal world there should be no dataflows out of these modules; remember the daisy chain example from above.

    If you need to show the various line items in a single grid on a Page, then you will need to create an Output module to pull in the line items from the various modules. However, if these various line items already exist in other Output modules in the format you want to publish them, there is no need to create an additional Output module just because you have a new Page. At the end of the day, while we want to keep things organized, we also want to keep things simple.

     

    In practice, there is some "blending" of different purposes for different modules, but there is a core concept for breaking out each type.

    • Calculation: allows you to focus on optimizing calculations without needing to focus on how things appear on pages
    • System: allows you to focus on re-using simple calculations across your model
    • Data: allows you to focus on optimizing for importing data
    • Input/Output: allows you to focus on providing the best user experience, even if it may be sub-optimal for one of the other purposes

     

    Hope this helps guide you to the best solution for your case!

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