The Dashboard Dilemma: Should We Publish or Migrate?
Introduction
As organizations grapple with complex data challenges, their data analysts navigate a labyrinth of decisions. Faced with the choice to publish (online migration) or migrate (offline migration) their dashboards, analysts weigh the benefits and shortcomings of each. This article demystifies the decision-making process behind choosing to publish or migrate dashboards, outlining the strategic purposes behind each. Choosing the right one can streamline your organization’s analytical reporting to deliver critical insights to stakeholders.
Why publish or migrate a dashboard?
Accessibility and insight-sharing
Publishing a dashboard allows for broader accessibility to important data insights across an organization or with external stakeholders. This ensures that decision-makers, team members, and clients can easily access up-to-date information, facilitating a transparent and informed decision-making process. The shared insights help align teams toward common goals and objectives based on real-time data.
Data governance and security
When migrating and publishing dashboards, data governance and security measures can be more effectively applied and managed. By controlling who has access to what information, organizations can ensure that sensitive data is only accessible to authorized users. This is crucial for compliance with data protection regulations and for maintaining the integrity and confidentiality of the data.
Improved collaboration
Both published and migrated dashboards encourage collaboration within teams and departments. It enables users to work on the same set of data, share insights, and make collective, informed decisions. This collaborative environment can lead to more innovative solutions to business challenges and a more cohesive approach to reaching organizational goals.
Efficiency and time-savings
Migrating and publishing dashboards streamline the reporting and analysis process. Instead of manually compiling reports from various data sources, a dashboard provides a centralized platform for accessing and analyzing data. This saves significant time and resources, allowing employees to focus on more strategic tasks rather than on repetitive data compilation and reporting.
Performance monitoring and real-time updates
With published and migrated dashboards, organizations can monitor key performance indicators in real time. This immediate access to performance data allows for quick identification of trends, issues, and opportunities. Consequently, businesses can respond more swiftly and effectively to market changes, operational challenges, or customer needs, thus maintaining a competitive edge.
How to publish a dashboard in Bold BI
Bold BI makes it easy to publish your dashboards after designing them. Depending on where your target audience is, you can publish them internally to sites on the same Bold BI server, or externally to other Bold BI servers.
The following steps show how to publish a sample dashboard to different sites created in the same Bold BI server.
Publishing a dashboard internally
To learn more about this process, refer to our documentation.
1. In the Dashboards list, click the three-dot action button for the dashboard you want to publish and then select Publish.
2. In the dialog that appears, select Internal Site and click Next.
3. Fill in the required details and then click Submit.
4. Navigate to the other site and view the dashboard.
To learn more about this process, refer to our documentation.
How to migrate a Bold BI dashboard to another tenant
Bold BI also supports dashboard migration, which allows you to transfer your dashboards from one tenant to another via online and offline migration. The offline migration relies on a BBIX file that you download and upload from the source to the destination environment.
To learn more about Bold BI’s migration feature, read our blog, “ Streamlining Dashboard Migration Across Tenants In Bold BI.” It provides a clear illustration of the process.
When to publish and when to migrate a dashboard
Accessibility: The biggest factor in deciding to publish or migrate a dashboard is what the dashboard’s audience has access to. If the intended audience has access to the application in which the dashboard is embedded and maintained, then you should publish the dashboard. If the audience is a set of external stakeholders outside of the organization, it is likely that you will need to restore to migrating the dashboard.
Ease of sharing: If sharing with ease is your goal, publishing is the way to go. With just a URL or embed code, anyone can view your dashboard. When migrating a dashboard, access will likely be restricted to individuals who have permissions in the new platform.
Interactivity: For an interactive experience that allows for in-depth data exploration, publishing your dashboard is ideal. In contrast, a migrated dashboard’s interactivity might be limited depending on the viewing tools.
Real-time updates: When you need to ensure that your dashboard displays the latest data without manual refreshes, publishing is the answer. With migration, you must verify that the target platform can handle real-time data.
Conclusion
The decision to publish or migrate a dashboard directly affects who has access to the dashboard’s analysis and insights. Carefully consider who needs to view the dashboard and what applications and interfaces they have access to. Furthermore, think about the features you want to support in the dashboard, as many features that are available in a published dashboard may not be supported in a migrated dashboard.
Originally published at https://www.boldbi.com on May 17, 2024.
