CenterView Technical FAQs

Does CenterView (CV) have security built-in?

Yes, CenterView allows for users to authenticate using supported security policies (if they exist) within corporations. CV supports single sign-on and each user can have very personalized views of the dashboard. CenterView also has integrated additional security in place to stop "spoofing" (users masquerading as other users), this prohibits someone from getting the secure data from the DB. Refer to: Keeping it Under Wraps: How Corda’s CenterView Enterprise Dashboard Secures Critical Data"

What about security at the directory integration level?

When a person logs into CenterView, using a custom plug-in, CenterView can get information from any LDAP directory, including Active Directory, eDirectory, or other login methods. CenterView can then use the information stored in those directories by including it in queries to limit the data used to create specific key performance indicators or other images on the pages of your dashboard.

Does CenterView allow secure access authorization?

Yes, CenterView allows for SSL encrypted connections to the web server when you sign in as well as when viewing dashboards.

Can CenterView support Data/Row Level Security?

CenterView allows for a DBA to set roles within the organization, and using those roles with the Corda Administrator, can use this info and execute custom queries, and based upon what group they are a member of or what employee id they have to perform queries on; CenterView supports dynamic SQL

What about publishing, is this tied to security and how does CenterView control the individual’s view of dashboards, key performance indicators, or other objects?

Using CenterView administrator, rights can be set on individual users for access to dashboards, what they can view, and what properties and rights they have.

Does CenterView allow access to secure or authenticated websites to access HTML tables?

Yes, CenterView can perform this by posting the credentials or passing them along as a variable with the HTML request. Example: an HTML page in "my yahoo" that is authenticated to my username and password – I want to view 3 stock tickers and display those in a graph.

What data types can CenterView access? (eg. RDBMS, XL, HTML)

All the above. Using our patented datafunnels CenterView can access data stored in any relational database that can be accessed using an ODBC or JDBC connection. Datafunnels can also connect to various flat-file formats including Excel spreadsheets, csv, tab-delimited files, and html data tables. In addition, datafunnels can pull data out of any proprietary data store as long as it has an exposed API to which we can connect through what is known as an external datafunnel.

Are datafunnels all batch or can they be real-time?

Both – batch file can be set during middle of night to not impede traffic and performance. This can be done through the CenterView server administrator to set up queries to be performed at a specific time and day.

How do you handle datafunnel scheduling?

When creating a datafunnel you can specify the time to live (TTL) property which specifies how long the data for that datafunnel is to be cached on the server. The default is 15 minutes but can be completely controlled by you. When that data is needed to create a key performance indicator we use what is cached in memory for. Once expired, we query again and use that data until TTL expires and the cycle repeats.

When the datafunnel is connecting to a flat-file the server looks on the disk to see if the file has changed compared to what is in memory – if not, it uses what is in memory otherwise it gets the latest data from the file.

Can you write content in a key performance indicator or on the Dashboard? (i.e. message from the CEO, Description of the Metric, etc.)

Yes, you can include any standard HTML object that you want in a CenterView dashboard. That includes additional images, logos, text, special components, etc. This data can come from datafunnels or it can be included when the dashboard is designed.

Review date/time stamping (eg. What version of the data am I working with, yesterday, last half hour?)

Refresh rates of key performance indicators are different than the data sets – it’s really easy for us to show and use date/time of key performance indicator refresh rate; define a string (month, year, hour, seconds, etc;) but that’s of only when the page was rendered, not when the data was refreshed from the queries.

How much control does one have over the look and feel of the graphics, as well as the space inside the key performance indicator?

Complete control. You can completely customize the look and feel of the dashboard by including company logos and color schemes using CenterView themes. You also have direct access to the cascading style sheets (css) used to generate the dashboard. By modifying the css files you can control everything from spacing in table cells to background colors in the key performance indicators.

How much control do you have over the drill-down in CenterView?

Drill-down in CenterView is very flexible. You can specify the target of the drill-down to one of several different objects. For example, you can make it so that the drill down merely refreshes the current key performance indicator with new values. Or you can make the drill-down popup a new window with a separate key performance indicator in it. You can also make the drill-down popup a separate window with a page outside of the dashboard like your company intranet site.

Can you filter, sort, rank, etc. the data when building a key performance indicator or is this only done in the datafunnel?

Yes. When building the key performance indicator this can be accomplished. You have the ability to modify the data inside of the datafunnel at the datafunnel level as well as at the key performance indicator level.

Are all key performance indicators graphics?

No. key performance key performance indicators can also include html data tables, drop-down boxes, checkboxes, etc.

Can you support list and cross-tab report displays in lieu of graphics?

You can create key performance indicators that are merely html tables of data instead of graphs, charts, or maps. These html data tables are standard html tables and thus do not include cross-tab or pivot table functionality.

Is CenterView JSR168 Compliant?

CenterView 3.0 is JSR168 Compliant. You can also display CenterView content as a Microsoft® SharePoint™ Web Part. You can display dashboard pages or KPIs, which can contain one or many graphs, data tables, and html elements.