Cognos Dashboard Embedded Package

The OpenWhisk Cognos Dashboard Embedded package provides a set of actions for interacting with Cognos Dashboard Embedded instances. These actions allow you to view and create Dashboards using data available in IBM Cloud Object Storage or more custom locations.

OpenWhisk entities

Entity	Type	Parameters	Description
openwhisk-cognos-dashboard	package	webDomain, __bx_creds	Work with a Cognos Dashboard Embedded instance.
create-dashboard	action	module, spec	Renders a Cognos Dashboard
sample-module	action		Demonstrates an example module
sample-spec	action		Demonstrates an example spec
sample-dashboard-edit	sequence		Demonstrates an example Dashboard in Edit mode
sample-dashboard-view	sequence		Demonstrates an example Dashboard in View mode

Parameters

Parameter	Description
module	A module that declares the data source
spec	An existing dashboard, see Adding a canned dashboard to an application
webDomain	The web domain of the site used to render the Dashboard; default is https://service.us.apiconnect.ibmcloud.com
__bx_creds	The Cognos Dashboard Embedded binding

Before you begin

Before you can view Dashboards, you need to have a service instance of Cognos Dashboard Embedded.

1. Follow the first two steps in the Getting Started Tutorial.

Installing the Cognos Dashboard Embedded package

Use the Cloud Functions CLI plugin to install the Cognos Dashboard Embedded package into your namespace.

1. Install the Cloud Functions plugin for the IBM Cloud CLI.
2. Install the wskdeploy command. See the Apache OpenWhisk documentation.

To install the Cognos Dashboard Embedded package:

1. Clone the Cognos Dashboard Embedded package repo.

   git clone https://github.com/IBM-Cloud/openwhisk-cognos-dashboard.git

2. Deploy the package.

   wskdeploy -m manifest.yaml

3. Verify that the openwhisk-cognos-dashboard package is added to your package list.

   ibmcloud fn package list

   Output:

   packages
   /myOrg_mySpace/openwhisk-cognos-dashboard private

Binding Cognos Dashboard Embedded Credentials

The Cognos Dashboard Embedded package relies on the service credentials that were created in the Getting Started tutorial. A service binding will add the credentials to the package.

1. Bind the credentials to the Cognos Dashboard Embedded package.

   ibmcloud fn service bind dynamic-dashboard-embedded openwhisk-cognos-dashboard --instance <your cognos dashboard instance name>

Using the package

A sample Dashboard has been provided to test the package.

1. Access the API Management page in IBM Cloud Functions.
2. Select the Cognos Dashboard Embedded APIs.
3. Use the copy button to copy the Route to your API.
4. Vist the link <your route URL>/sample-edit in your browser.
5. Vist the link <your route URL>/sample-view in your browser.

To use your own data sources and dashboards, perform the following steps.

1. Create a new Cloud Function's action similar to the Sample Module. To provide data, simply return an object with the module property that contains the data source object required by the Cognos Dashboard Embedded API. If you're rendering a canned Dashboard, return an object with the spec property that contains the specification.
   • Sample Module
   • Sample Spec
2. Create a web-enabled sequence that begins with your action and then calls the openwhisk-cognos-dashboard/create-dashboard action. An example is seen in the Sample Dashboard sequence.

    sequences:
      my-dashboard:
        actions: my-action,openwhisk-cognos-dashboard/create-dashboard
        web: true

3. Expose your sequence as an API. Again, this is similar to the sample dashboard route seen above. For example, the below wskdeploy manifest would create a dashboard at the URL mydashboards/sample.

    apis:
      your-api-name:
        mydashboards:
          sample:
            my-dashboard:
              method: GET
              response: http