Classic dashboards overview

A classic dashboard is a smart-client screen assembled from one or more BAQs. You design it in the Dashboard program, deploy it as a compiled assembly, and add it to the menu like any other program. No code is needed for most dashboards, although a deployed dashboard can be customized like any Classic form.

If you’re building for Kinetic, see Build a dashboard step by step instead.

The pieces

Piece	What it does
Query	A shared BAQ added with New > New Query. Filters set in the Dashboard Query Properties apply to every view of that query.
Grid view	Shows the query’s rows. Has its own filters, Show Group By and Show Summaries.
Tracker view	A search panel for the query: the columns you tick as Prompt become input fields that filter the grid.
Publish / subscribe	A query can publish columns that another query subscribes to, so selecting a row in one grid filters the next.
Chart view	A chart built from the query’s results.

Queries whose IDs start with z are Epicor’s own system queries. You can use them but not edit them; copy one in the BAQ Designer if you need a variation.

Build and deploy

1. Open Executive Analysis > Business Activity Management > General Operations > Dashboard. If there’s no New menu, turn on Tools > Developer.
2. New > New Dashboard: enter a Definition ID and caption.
3. New > New Query: pick the BAQ. Add tracker views, extra grids and publish/subscribe links as needed.
4. Check it on the Dashboard tab with Refresh, then Save.
5. Tools > Deploy Dashboard. Tick Deploy Smart Client Application and click Deploy. Wait for the status pane to show it’s finished.
6. In Menu Maintenance, add a menu item: choose where it goes, give it a Menu ID and Name, pick Program Type Dashboard-Assembly, and select the dashboard.
7. Save. Users see the item after restarting the client.

Use an Order Sequence that isn’t already taken in that menu folder; duplicates under the same parent aren’t allowed.

Dashboard-Assembly or Dashboard-Runtime?

Menu Maintenance offers two program types for dashboards:

• Dashboard-Assembly runs the compiled assembly produced by Deploy Dashboard. It’s the normal choice for new dashboards and gives users features such as exporting the grid straight to Excel.
• Dashboard-Runtime is the older, legacy approach that runs the dashboard from its definition.

Caution

Deployed dashboards are cached on each client. After you redeploy, users may keep seeing the old version until their client cache is cleared; see Classic client troubleshooting.

Kinetic versions of classic dashboards

The same Deploy Dashboard window can also generate a Kinetic version of the dashboard (Preview Kinetic, then Generate Kinetic Form). The generated app is added to the menu with Program Type Kinetic App. It’s a useful starting point when moving to Kinetic, though anything you customized in the classic dashboard has to be rebuilt; see Migrating to Kinetic.

In this section

Page	What it covers
Tracker filters with a BAQ combo	A drop-down filter on a tracker view, fed by its own BAQ
Grid summaries and grand totals	Summaries, totals at the top, and a grand total that survives grouping
Mass updates with Uptake from Excel	Editing many rows of an updatable dashboard from a spreadsheet