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DataLaVista™

Publish and share a dashboard

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This page explains how to save a finished dashboard and share it. It covers the Generate Report tab, the share link, and who can see a shared dashboard. It is for anyone whose dashboard has passed the preview.

The report configuration

The Generate Report tab shows the report configuration. This is a JSON file with everything DataLaVista needs to open the dashboard again: the connections, the query, and the layout. It does not hold the data itself. The one exception is a file you loaded with the Upload Files tab, whose data is included.

Ways to save

Button What happens
Publish to SharePoint Saves the report configuration to a document library on your SharePoint site. DataLaVista then shows a link to the dashboard and a Share button that copies it. This is the easiest way to share with colleagues. The library's permissions and the data's permissions both still apply.
Save to SharePoint List Saves the report configuration as an attachment on a SharePoint list item.
Save Local Copy Downloads the report configuration to your computer. Use it for a backup, for version control, or to move a dashboard between sites.

Open a shared dashboard

To open a dashboard, add the address of its report configuration to the DataLaVista page address, after ?report=:

https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/example/SitePages/DataLaVista.aspx?report=https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/example/Shared%20Documents/Reports/Study%20Status.json

You do not have to build this address yourself. Publish to SharePoint shows it, and Share copies it. Paste it into an email or a Teams message. Add &reportMode=view to the address to open the dashboard without the designer, the way the demo does.

To open a saved file instead, use the Open Dashboard tab of the Connect to Data Source popup.

Make report files clickable in SharePoint

When you select a .json file in a document library, SharePoint downloads it. Two optional formatting files in the repository make a report file open in DataLaVista instead:

Both expect the DataLaVista page at /SitePages/DataLaVista.aspx on the same site. The SharePoint install guide puts it there. Apply them from the column or view settings in SharePoint. Microsoft's column formatting and view formatting pages show how.

Who can see a shared dashboard

DataLaVista adds no permissions of its own. Two things decide what a person sees:

  • the permissions on the place where the report configuration is stored, such as the document library, and
  • the permissions on each data source the dashboard reads, such as a SharePoint list or a file in a library.

A person who can open the DataLaVista page and read the data sources sees the full dashboard. A person who cannot read a data source sees the dashboard without that data. The report configuration never holds a password or a token.

Conclusion

You can now save a dashboard to SharePoint or to a file, and send a link that opens it. You can also explain who will be able to see it. If a link does not open or data is missing, see Troubleshooting.

Additional resources

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