Assign data sources to dashboard components
To display content in a dashboard component, you need to assign a data source to the component at first.
Most dashboard components support on server side provided data sources, such as Event, BigMemory and XML data sources. The MashZone NextGen App component requires a MashZone NextGen app and MashZone NextGen Views takes only MashZone NextGen Mashups as data sources. For the Inputfield and Image components data sources are not required.
For several data sources, for example, XML, JDBC and RAQL queries, you can define dynamical and reusable input parameters, see
Create input parameters.
Procedure
2. Click a component in the dashboard. The relevant properties dialog is displayed.
3. Click the 
Assign data icon to edit the data source assignment. The Assign data (1/2) dialog opens. Here you can edit the Data flow and create dynamic Input parameters for the component selected. The Data flow box shows an overview of the data source configuration.
4. Optionally, you can create input parameters for the selected component.
Input parameters are dynamic and reusable parameters to be used in several data source operators and data transformation operators. See
Create input parameters.
5. Select a data source operator in the Add a data source bar and specify your settings. See Data source operators for a list of available data source operators. 6. In addition to the data source operator you can add further operators to transform the source data.
a. Select a data transformation operator, for example, Change data type, in the Add data operations bar and specify your settings. See the parameter table of each Data transformation operators for details. 7. Click the 
Calculate peview icon of an operator to display a preview of the transformed source data of the operator. This enables you to track all data changes step by step. 8. Click Save as data feed if you want to save your data source configuration as data feed.
You can reuse your saved data feed definition by using the
Data feed operator, for example, as data source for other dashboard component or for defining another data feed in the feed editor. See
Data feed for details.
9. Click Next.
The Assign data (2/2) dialog opens. Here you can assign the data source columns to the individual component elements, for example, x- and y-axis, or partition.
10. If you want to return to the Assign data (1/2) dialog to change the data source settings, click Edit data source. The option is not available for dashboard components based on a PPM context. In this case you can click Use other data. See Assign data columns to PPM context-based components for details. The data source and transformation operators are assigned to the component selected.
To display data in a dashboard component (for example, in a line chart), you must assign the relevant data source columns to the component elements required. In the
Assign data (2/2) dialog, you can assign data source columns to the individual component elements. For example, you can assign separate columns to the chart axes as dimension (x-axis) or KPI (y-axis). Details on assignment of data columns can be found in the following chapters. The assignment is described separately for each dashboard component, for example,
Assign data columns to line, column or bar charts.