Question

I wish to create a web dashboard for my team (day-to-day visualization). I am looking for some insight as to how to proceed (perhaps steps, best technologies, etc). I am confortable with jQuery, PHP, HTML/CSS, but I lack in terms of mySQL, which is probably needed in this case.

So, here are the requirements:

1/ I need to create an input interface where I would manually enter the data for the day (which could possibly be replaced eventually with API calls to the services, but I am making it manual for now)

2/ A database to capture the data

3/ A dashboard to display the info
3.1/ Various Chart types,
3.2/ * A DATE RANGE SELECTION TOOL
3.3/ The data itself, values only in a table

So as you can see, it is really Google Analytics-ish.

Can you help me figuring what technologies I should use, best practices, good resources such as tutorials, techniques, and examples.

Thanks in advance!

Jonas

Answer 1

you migh consider using HighCharts for this purpose. HighCharts can talk easily to any JSON interface, have a look here for examples: http://www.highcharts.com/documentation/how-to-use#live-charts

A sample Database call might work like this:

<?php
mysql_connect("hostname", "user", "password");
mysql_select_db("mydb");
$result = mysql_query("select * from mytable");
$obj = mysql_fetch_object($result);
mysql_free_result($result);

echo json_decode($obj);

?>

This would return a valid JSON from the server, to which you can point your highcharts and build the charts. Good Luck!