Migrating Dashboards Across Environments

Many users that implement Sisense maintain copies of their dashboards locally or across multiple environments for a variety of reasons. With multiple instances of Sisense, you can test and verify your data's accuracy before publishing dashboards to a production environment where accuracy is critical. You can save external copies of dashboards for disaster recovery. OEMs can support a primary server and separate servers for each of their customers, copying the relevant dashboards from the primary server to the appropriate customer server. Sisense enables Administrators and Designers to maintain multiple copies of their dashboards and migrate them quickly and easily across multiple environments.

There are two options for migrating dashboards between Sisense environments. The first option is to export your dashboards into a .dash file locally, and then import the dashboards into the relevant environments. This option is useful if you do not have access to the server, for example, if you are an OEM providing dashboards to your customers. For more information about exporting dashboards, see Exporting Sisense Dashboards.

The second option is to copy the dashboard from one Sisense server to another. In this scenario, you can copy dashboards from one environment directly to another environment after the Administrator of the target server provides access to the source server. The target server can only accept files from servers available on the Trusted Server List, found in the Approved Servers tab of the Admin page. For example, if you have two machines with Sisense installed, on the server where you want to copy dashboards to, you can provide access to the source server by adding the source server's IP address to my list of allowed servers.

After providing access, an Administrator or Designer can copy the dashboard directly to the target server. If the dashboard already exists on the target server, the Administrator or Designer will be notified and can overwrite the existing dashboard or create a duplicate dashboard on the target server.

The option you choose depends on which methodology is convenient for you and what you need to achieve. The end result is the same.

There are several thing you should remember when copying a dashboard to another server. First, copied dashboards and their widgets keep their IDs. This ensures that any users with bookmarks of the dashboard or its widgets can continue using the same bookmarks. If the dashboards already exist on the recipient server, Sisense prompts you to select how you want to handle each dashboard that already exists. In the Copy Dashboards to Server window, a list of all the dashboards to be copied to the recipient server is displayed. The list includes the dashboards name, the destination path where the dashboard is to be copied, and several options for how you wish to handle the dashboard in case it already exists.

In the example below, you can see that the Sample - Healthcare dashboard has been renamed to "Renamed Dashboard". Sisense recognizes that these dashboards are the same even though the name on the recipient server has been changed.

For the Sample - Ecommerce dashboard, the dashboard has been saved in a folder called "test" on the recipient server. The dashboards full destination path on the recipient server is displayed. When the dashboard is located in the main navigation tree, only the dashboard name is displayed.

Second, when copying a dashboard, the dashboard's scripts on the target server are overwritten. The scripts from the source dashboard are used instead. If your data source is not the same in each environment, you will need to manually adjust the data source after copying the dashboards. If plugins are installed on the original server, these plugins will not work on the dashboard unless they are also installed on the target server.

Third, changes to your dashboards are not reflected on the same dashboard in another environment. To modify a remote dashboard you can either modify it on the remote server, or modify it in your source server, and repeat the migration process. Once you have completed your changes, you will need to republish the dashboard.

Copying Dashboards between Sisense Servers

Administrators and Designers with access to a remote Sisense server can copy dashboards from one Sisense server to another. When you copy a dashboard or a folder to a remote server, all the dashboards, including those in the selected folders are duplicated into the main Navigation Pane in the target server. Folders are not duplicated on the target server.

Before copying a dashboard to a target server, the Administrator of the target server must provide access to target server. The procedure below explains how to provide access to another server and then how to copy a dashboard from the source server to the target server through Sisense.

To copy your dashboard to another Sisense server:

1. On the target server, the Administrator must provider access for the source server to the target server. On the target Sisense server, select Admin and search for Approved Servers.

   

   The Trusted Server List page is displayed.

2. In the Trusted Server List page, click Add Server. The Create a New Server Access dialog box is displayed.

   

   Note:

   Some of the dialog boxes may be considered as pop-ups by your ad blockers. Make sure that Sisense is whitelisted or that your ad blocker is disabled when performing this procedure.

3. In the Server field, enter either the IP address and port or the hostname of the source server that contains the original dashboard.

4. In the Name field, enter a name for the source server. This is an optional identifier to help you keep track of your servers.

5. Click OK. The server is added to the list and now has copy access to the target server.

6. On the source server, from the Navigation Pane, click the dashboard's menu and click Copy to Server.

   

   OR

   To copy multiple dashboards, in the Dashboards list, click the Select Dashboards
   . The Copy Dashboards to Server dialog box is displayed.

   

7. In the Copy Dashboards to Server dialog box, enter the following information:

   Server : The URL or Hostname of the remote server. Sisense supports SSL connections so dashboards can be transferred securely when SSL is activated.

   Republish dashboards after copying : Select to automatically republish the dashboard on the target server after the selected dashboards are copied. Republishing a dashboard refreshes the dashboard definitions (widget types, titles, scripts etc.) for each of the users who share the dashboard.

8. Click OK.

9. If the dashboards already exist on the recipient server, Sisense prompts you to select how you want to handle each dashboard that already exists. You can select one of the following options for each dashboard:

   • Skip: No changes are made to the dashboard on the recipient server.
   • Overwrite: The new dashboard writes the existing dashboard on the recipient server.
   • Duplicate: A new dashboard is created on the recipient server with a number added to the end of the dashboard's title, for example, "Sample Dashboard (1)".

After you have defined how the dashboards are to be handled, the selected dashboards are copied to the remote server and displayed in the Dashboard's list.

Troubleshooting

For the copy-to-server feature to work between two SSL-enabled environments, copy the contents of the intermediate SSL certificate CA into the /customCertificates/ca-certificates.crt file. This triggers a restart of the SSL services. Copy to server over SSL will then work as expected.

Run the following commands on your local computer to get the intermediate certificate:

openssl s_client -connect <DOMAIN_NAME>:443 -servername <DOMAIN_NAME> | tee logcertfile
openssl x509 -in logcertfile -noout -text | grep -i "issuer" curl --output intermediate.crt <URL WITH CRT FILE FROM PREVIOUS COMMAND>
openssl x509 -inform DER -in intermediate.crt -out intermediate.pem -text

Limitations

• You cannot copy a dashboard to another server when SSL is enabled on the origin server