This section describes how to generate dashboards for a given query by using the Dashboard Generation wizard.

Dashboards provide the ability to view and interact with queries, and DataViews. They contain charts and other objects that dynamically visualize the values of query variables. Dashboards can also contain control objects for creating, editing, and deleting query instances. You create Dashboards either with the Dashboard Generation wizard or with the Dashboard Builder.

The wizard allows you to generate simple, default dashboards, customized by your choices regarding layout, visualization objects to display, and query variables to use with each visualization object.

The Builder is a graphical composition tool that gives you control over a dashboard's appearance and behavior. It also supports a wider array of visualization and control objects than does the wizard. Advanced users can use the Builder instead of the wizard to create dashboards from scratch, or they can use the Builder in conjunction with the wizard to modify or augment generated dashboards. See Building Dashboard Clients for more information on the Dashboard Builder.

The wizard allows you to:

Once you have finished generating your dashboards with the wizard (or finished building or modifying them with the Builder), follow the steps described in Preparing Dashboards for Deployment.

Note that if you modify a dashboard with the Builder, the changes you make cannot be propagated back to the configuration that generated the dashboard. So once you modify a dashboard with the Builder, you cannot use the wizard for development of that dashboard.