Pentaho dashboard - Community version

[bbelagodu]

Folks,
New to Pentaho BI Platform.
Even after reading pentaho community website and forums I'm still confused about what is available as part of the community Pentaho BI Platform. I'm trying to get some interactive reports and dashboard setup using pentaho, evaluating both commercial and community version but not sure what to expect.

Is CDF (and its libraries) considered the pentaho community dashboard? Also, in the community version of Pentaho BI i see Ad Hoc Report (Legacy) Analysis View (Legacy) as options. I do not see 'Interactive Report' and 'Analyzer Report' - are these enterprise support only?

Was able to get the CDF working by going through several installations etc but not sure if Community Pentaho Dashboard is CDF?
Downloaded: http://sourceforge.net/projects/pent.../3.9.0-stable/
Followed up with: http://pedroalves-bi.blogspot.com/20...ings-fast.html

What are my options to create a pentaho dashboard using community version, what are my options for creating reports using community version?

Please see attachment of my screen for community Pentaho BI Server.

Thanks a bunch.

[mgie]

Hi and welcome!

Is CDF (and its libraries) considered the pentaho community dashboard?

CDF is the community dashboard framework. It was developed to facilitate the creation of dashboard back in the days when only jsp dashboards where available in pentaho. CDF is part of both the CE and the EE (some EE-only features rely on it).
With CDF you still have to code the dashboards yourself using that framework.

If you want to make live easier, there are dashboard editors available. In the EE you get the "Dashboard Designer" which is more visual. In the CE you get the "Community Dashboard Editor" (the one that you have in your screenshot) which is more flexible but less visual. Many people say that Dashboard Designer (EE) is nice for endusers to create simple dashboards but CDE is the "real thing".

Also, in the community version of Pentaho BI i see Ad Hoc Report (Legacy) Analysis View (Legacy) as options. I do not see 'Interactive Report' and 'Analyzer Report' - are these enterprise support only?

"Ad Hoc Report" and "Analysis View" are the original modules which are very old and ugly. Pentaho decided to provide the replacents "Interactive Report" and "Analyzer" , which are much more convenient and good looking, in the Enterprise Edition only.
Given that decision, some people started to develop similar modules for the Community Edition (under the "Saiku" brand). Roughly you can say:

Analyzer (EE) ~ Saiku-Analytics (CE)
Interactive Reporting (EE) ~ Saiku-Adhoc-Reporting (CE)

The Saiku-Modules do not come preinstalled with your CE download. You have to install them separately.
But you can easily get all these additional CE Plugins with Ctools-Installer (http://pedroalves-bi.blogspot.com/20...ings-fast.html)

what are my options for creating reports using community version?

1) Pentaho Report Designer (PRD): this fat-client tool is the same for CE and EE and allows you to create highly customized reports from scratch.
2) Ad Hoc Report (Legacy): not recommended! creates an old report format which cant be edited in the PRD later.
3) Saiku-Adhoc-Reporting: Allows to create reports on the web if you have a Metadata-Model for your database. You can export Saiku-Reports to a format that can be edited in the PRD later.

cheers,

mgie