You may be asking yourself why I thought something as simple as the Date/Time control on Dashboards is blog worthy. At surface level 
, it looks like just another date/time feature. If you have not used it before, that could be a logical assumption. What I want to share with you is the power inside this little control. The options available are what I will focus on for t
his blog.
1st Option: Current
This option simply acts as a clock displaying the current date/time. The dashboard keeps up to date/time without the worries of when it was last refreshed. Yes it is simple, bu
t still powerful. You can also select your preferred foreground color, background color, font and size.
2nd Option: Last Refresh
When you select this option, the control displays the time the Dashboard was last opened or refreshed. This indicates when the Dashboard was most recently updated to reflect the latest data. Most users set a timer (another Dashboard property) to refresh the Dashboard every hour or two. The timing will be different based on the needs of each user. Each Dashboard may have its own refresh times. The “Last Refresh” option takes the guesswork out of knowing when a visualization was generated.
3rd Option: Last Data
This is the date and time of the most recent data. This option schedules the next check based on clock time. As you see in the image below, once you click on this option the right side expands with additional options. This control checks for new data every 60 seconds.
- Schedule data collection every 60 or 30 minutes.
- Time due
- Overdue color
- Warning time – this is the minutes before due. You can select up to 20 minutes before it is due. This is used with the warning color below.
- Warning color
- SPC data – This is simply true or false. This selection affects which filter shows in the next option.
- Filter – This option is powerful. What do we want to base this time check on? Is this for a particular machine? Maybe an important property like weight? Whatever it is, you can create the filter to limit the data we are checking times against.
- “No data” label – If this check is overdue by 4 hours or more, then this label will be used on the Dashboard.
4th Option: Last Data
No, this is not a duplicate of the one above, but if you quickly pass it by it may seem so. This control schedules the next check based on the elapsed time since the last check. It is very similar to the one above. If you look at the image below, you can see the first property is different. This property allows you to fill in your own minutes for collecting new data. Is it every two hours? Then you would enter 120 minutes. The rest of the properties that are showing are the same as above.
Bonus Property
After you click OK to place the new date/time control on the Dashboard, the Properties Grid for this control will show on the right-hand side like the example displayed here. Do not forget about the OverdueAction property! It can automatically launch an action if this check is overdue. Take a look at all the opt
ions you have to choose from in the far right image. (Clicking on it makes it much easier to read.)
Other Stuff
- Bookmark the “Tech Tips Live Webinar” page. It shows the next LIVE Webinar, future Webinars, plus videos of past TTL webinars.
- Starting with GainSeeker 8.9, Windows XP is NO LONGER SUPPORTED. If you have machines still on XP, you cannot upgrade to GainSeeker 8.9 or greater. Click here for a current list of our supported environments.
- If you do not have GainSeeker yet, I urge you to schedule a demo! Oh, and if you tell them Jen sent ya, I will sit in on the demo with you to help answer any technical questions you may have.
- Microsoft SQL Server and Linux?? Yup, no problem starting with GainSeeker version 9.1.
- Active Directory and GainSeeker play well together.
