Dashboard Deployment Without Folders

Wade Dorrell — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 03:39:41 GMT

When deploying a dashboard to a document library from PerformancePoint 2007 Dashboard Designer, Dashboard Designer creates each dashboard page .aspx file in a folder named the same as the dashboard:

But what if we don’t want folders?

The “Create View” Way

I created a view for “Insurance Dashboards” with the “Show all items without folders” setting turned on, and set it as the default:

The folders still exist, but users visiting the document library get a flattened list of all pages by default.

The “SharePoint Workflow” Way

With SharePoint workflow we can remove folders as dashboards are deployed.

First, I create a document library for the purpose of deployment. I called it “Insurance Dashboards - Deploy”.

Next, I create a new workflow in SharePoint Designer that copies any item created in “Insurance Dashboards – Deploy” to “Insurance Dashboards”. (Serendipitously, the folder structure won’t be maintained by the copy… )

When deploying a dashboard in Dashboard Designer I target “Insurance Dashboards – Deploy” instead of “Insurance Dashboards”:

The workflow makes a copy of each page to “Insurance Dashboards”, leaving the folder structure behind.

Thoughts on The “SharePoint Workflow” Way

We might add a step that deletes the deployed after the copy occurs.
How might we handle page collisions? (We might rename, do a forced overwrite, or go into a holding pattern when this happens. I haven’t tried any of these things yet.)
This pattern might be useful for other things, such as altering the content of some dashboard pages, particularly to add a custom web part. This is also something I haven’t tried, but if anyone has, please let me know!

Any other thoughts? Please leave comments here on the blog.

PerformancePointy: Wade Dorrell's MSDN Blog : workflow

Dashboard Deployment Without Folders

The “Create View” Way

The “SharePoint Workflow” Way

Thoughts on The “SharePoint Workflow” Way