{"id":10852,"date":"2016-01-11T12:33:44","date_gmt":"2016-01-11T12:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/visualstudioalm\/2016\/01\/11\/dashboards-futures-january-2016\/"},"modified":"2022-08-03T00:02:09","modified_gmt":"2022-08-03T08:02:09","slug":"dashboards-futures-january-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/dashboards-futures-january-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Dashboards Futures (January 2016)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In October<\/a>, we released the new dashboards feature in VS Team Services and TFS 2015 Update 1.\u00a0 Dashboards are a customizable canvas that replaces your existing Team Overview page and enable you to visualize status and monitor progress across your project.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019ve heard a lot of great feedback that has shaped our direction and there is still so much we\u2019d like to do.\u00a0 We\u2019re glad that many of you have been enjoying the new features!<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t a comprehensive list of the dashboards and widgets improvements we\u2019re making, but it\u2019ll give you an idea on where we\u2019re going in H1.\u00a0 Many of the UX mocks I\u2019m showing you aren’t final yet, so bear with us as we complete the designs.<\/p>\n

Edit Mode<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last month, we released Edit Mode<\/a> for dashboards which helps prevent inadvertent moving of widgets on your dashboards.\u00a0 It was also important to open up new scenarios for widgets \u2013 in particular, moving third-party widgets when we open up the widget ecosystem, and enabling drag-to-resize for widgets.\u00a0 We\u2019ve heard feedback that many users want more control over the size of widgets (i.e. query results widget) and we\u2019re working hard to get there.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n

**3rd Party SDK **<\/p>\n

When we launched dashboards, we mentioned that our widgets are written as extensions<\/a>, allowing you to write and share your own widgets.\u00a0 Widgets are implemented as a contribution point<\/a> in the extension framework.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be releasing a public preview of the widget SDK in Q1 of 2016.\u00a0 You\u2019ll need some knowledge of JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and a good idea to build a widget.\u00a0 Stay tuned to our features timeline<\/a> to hear more.<\/p>\n

Auto-refresh<\/strong><\/p>\n

One feature we\u2019ve heard requests for is the ability to auto-refresh dashboards for boards that are displayed on TV monitors or hallway screens.\u00a0 We\u2019re planning to enable an opt-in feature to auto-refresh a specific dashboard every 5 minutes.\u00a0 We won\u2019t be enabling this by default for all dashboards to be careful of unnecessarily load we put on the service.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n

Charts and widgets<\/strong><\/p>\n

More widgets and charts!\u00a0 This is by far the number one request we\u2019ve heard around dashboards, and we hope you\u2019ll help us build up the catalog once the SDK is released.<\/p>\n

Charts in the catalog<\/em><\/p>\n

One area we\u2019re focusing on is improving the discoverability and ease in bringing different charts on your dashboard.\u00a0 You\u2019ll start to see the ability to add and configure a build chart, work item chart, or test chart directly from the dashboard.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n

Cumulative flow diagram<\/em><\/p>\n

Using a cumulative flow diagram can help visualize your work in progress to diagnose any bottlenecks happening in your software development process.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be adding a cumulative flow widget to look at the flow of work in your backlog for a rolling period or a specific iteration.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n

Markdown widget from file<\/em><\/p>\n

The first version of the markdown widget allowed custom markdown stored inside the widget.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be making improvements to the existing widget to allow it to display any markdown file in your existing repository and to \u201cadd\u201d a markdown widget directly from the code explorer.<\/p>\n

There are so many other widgets in the works \u2013 test widgets, release management widgets, countdown widget \u2013 just to name a few.\u00a0 If there are specific widgets you\u2019d like to see, feel free to use the smiley face in the top-right corner of VS Team Services or send us email at dashboard-feedback at microsoft.com.<\/p>\n

New widget catalog<\/strong><\/p>\n

The last thing I want to share is some upcoming changes to the existing widget catalog.\u00a0 Today, when you add a new widget, the catalog opens up over the center of the dashboard.\u00a0 When adding a widget to your board, you need to add the widget to the bottom of the dashboard, then drag it to where you want it to go.\u00a0 The new catalog will allow you to add a place at the same time, and see your underlying dashboard.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n

Please reach out on Twitter (@karenkayliu<\/a>) if you have thoughts, comments, or questions about anything described here. And please help us prioritize by heading over to UserVoice<\/a> to add your idea or vote for an existing one or hit the smiley face in the top right corner of VS Team Services.<\/p>\n

Thanks!<\/p>\n

Karen Ng<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In October, we released the new dashboards feature in VS Team Services and TFS 2015 Update 1.\u00a0 Dashboards are a customizable canvas that replaces your existing Team Overview page and enable you to visualize status and monitor progress across your project.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019ve heard a lot of great feedback that has shaped our direction and there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":185,"featured_media":45953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-devops"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

In October, we released the new dashboards feature in VS Team Services and TFS 2015 Update 1.\u00a0 Dashboards are a customizable canvas that replaces your existing Team Overview page and enable you to visualize status and monitor progress across your project.\u00a0\u00a0 We\u2019ve heard a lot of great feedback that has shaped our direction and there […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/185"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10852"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10852\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/devops\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}