We’ve been working on a demo to showcase our MagnumBI platform, using data we’d taken through Optimal Data Flow and surfaced it in Yellowfin. As part of the demo we want to showcase the power of the iPad app for viewing content and as usual, decided to share my learnings. For the demo we’ve been playing around with Yellowfin distribution and security – we wanted to show people the app without them seeing all the work in progress reports, mainly to keep it tidy rather than anything top secret, but the principle’s the same.
There’s two parts to setting this up, firstly sharing the reports to the user and secondly configuring the app to connect to your Yellowfin server.
1. SHARING
There’s two options when distributing to a Yellowfin user, you can either share to individuals or groups, similar to most security models. First of all, the assumption is that you’ve got a user setup already in Yellowfin that you want to share a report or dashboard with. If not, you can find out more about users and groups here:
USERS – http://wiki.yellowfin.com.au/display/USER70/Users
GROUPS – http://wiki.yellowfin.com.au/display/USER70/User+Groups
Within Yellowfin, find the report or dashboard you want to share and click on the button which looks like this:
This will give you the option to distribute, email or embed. Since we’re sharing with a user within Yellowfin, we want to Distribute. Click on ‘+ Add Recipients’ then choose either the person, people or group that you want to share with. My recommendation is to use groups, makes it much easier to manage in the long run. Also helps if someone else comes in to do the role, just assign them the group and all of the reports are shared rather than having to find the original reports and re-sharing them all. Once this is done you’re ready to setup your device.
2. SETTING UP YOUR DEVICE
I’m afraid we don’t have a Blackberry in the office to test with and Windows Phone isn’t yet supported by Yellowfin, which is why I’ve only covered iOS and Android.
If you haven’t yet done it, go to the Apple App Store or Google Play Store and install the free ‘YellowfinBI’ app on iOS or ‘Yellowfin’ on Android. Searching Yellowfin on either should bring back what you’re after.
iPad and iPhone
When you first launch the iPad/iPhone app it takes you straight into the Yellowfin demo data. Click on the menu icon (three lines at the top left) and choose connections. Click ‘Add’ at the top right and fill in the details.
Connection Name
The name to display in the connections list, this is just a description and doesn’t affect your connection.
Username and Password
These are the credentials you normally use to login to Yellowfin.
Server address
This is the web address you normally go to for yellowfin e.g. http://www.youryellowfinserver.com, you need to include the http or https at the start depending on your setup, so it knows the connection type. It’s the same address you use to login via the web.
Organisation
This is used to filter by organisation for platforms where you have more than one tenant using the same server. You can try leaving it blank for your setup and see if it works. If you’re unsure, ask your Yellowfin administrator and they should be able to advise. If they don’t know then it can probably just be left blank.
Connection Timeout
This is the time it will wait for a response from the server. I would suggest leaving as the default but can be changed if you have a reason to.
Once finished, click Test to make sure it’s working, then save. Tick your new connection then click Done at the top left. You should then see all of the content that’s been shared with you. You can also view your own content by clicking on the top left menu then browse, which should return everything.
Android
First time you open the app it should present you with the connections list. There will be one setup already called ‘Yellowfin Demo’ which is their dummy data for you to test the app. If this isn’t the first thing you see, you can get to this menu via your Android menu button then ‘Connections’.
Once in this menu, click on ‘Add Connection’, enter what you want to call it into the ‘Instance Name’ and the address of your server e.g. http://www.youryellowfinserver.com – it’s the same address you go to login via the web. You need to include the http or https at the start depending on your setup, so it knows the connection type.
Save the instance then tick the box next to your new connection, then click Go. It should connect and ask you for your login details, once done you should see all the reports that’ve been shared with you.
Hopefully that all works for you too.
Keep exploring! – Daniel