Dashoard application using vb.net

Hi,
I'm just trying to develop a dashboard. The dashboard contains different lines, time and qty. just want to know if this can be achivable in vb.net. every 5 minutes the dashboard will refresh of display new data. after the shift it will zero out the display and then generate data based on the new shift. right now this dashboard is made of Excel file and manually dump the records. any idea is very much appreciated. thank you.

sample:

line1
qty: 3
time: 00.35

============
line2
qty:3
time:03

up to line 10

Sounds fine to me.

I expect you could modify the Excel spreadsheet to make an SQL call every 5 minutes and freshen up its data - if that is easier for you to build, given that you already have the Excel spreadsheet for display (presumably?)

1 Like

Right now the data is extracted from SSRS report then exported the data to excel/csv file;. after this they were copied and dump to excel that contains the dashboard manually. They wanted to have an automated dashboard that anytime they can decide on what happening in their production. By the way, the dashboard will be displayed in a 32 inch LCD monitor.

Do you mean i will create an sql script that will call by excel? thanks.

That is one way. There are so many things you could do. One might be to present a graph through VB.NET to track and graph the values so that they can be seen at a glance. Just like Excel, VB.NET can call a query on a regular schedule for it's output.
The kinds of things you would need in VB.NET include:

  • Some sort of interface that displays results. Can be an edit field, a label, a graph, a grid, etc.
  • A control (maybe a button) to trigger refreshing the data from the interface.
  • A call to the query to return realtime data.
  • The ability for the app to check itself so that only one copy is running.
  • A container (array maybe) for keeping recent values to display.
  • An iterator (maybe a loop) to add each list item to the display.
  • Error handling should the query fail to connect or return anything.

Each of these has myriad ways of implementation, but we can't design the project. You will know more of what they need and can build what they need. With us being a list for SQL Server, we can help you with the connection and query, but the rest should be addressed to a VB.NET list or forum.

I should add that Excel's VBA can do most of the same things. VBA can have a form that contains controls, displays data, and updates to a regular schedule. You can pop up the spreadsheet, or import it's data into a gridview or limited graphical display.

Thank you very much for these input. I'll check first the VBA, i will automate on pulling the data that came from SSRS and dumping to spreadsheet. This process which i think i can do right away but i'll try also the vb.net.