The KoolReport Blog

Announcements, discussions, and more for KoolReport and its extended packages.

Dashboard vs AdminPanel

You might wondering What are the differences between Dashboard and Admin Panel? What should you choose for your project?

As businesses grow, so does the amount of data they generate. It becomes increasingly important to collect, organize and analyze this data to make informed decisions. This is where dashboards and admin panels come in.

Both dashboards and admin panels are tools used to manage and analyze data, but they serve different purposes. An admin panel is typically used by an organization's internal team to manage the backend of a website or application. It provides access to the data and tools necessary to manage the functionality and content of the site.

On the other hand, a dashboard is a user interface that provides an overview of important metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) for a business. It is designed to help stakeholders make quick, informed decisions based on real-time data.

While these two tools may seem similar, they serve distinct purposes. An admin panel is focused on managing and updating a website or application, while a dashboard is focused on presenting data and insights.

However, what if you could have a tool that combines both the functionality of an admin panel and a dashboard? That's where the Dashboard Framework of KoolReport comes in.

Built on top of the powerful KoolReport Pro, the Dashboard Framework is a set of ready-made features designed to make it easy for developers to create online dashboard applications or admin panels for websites. With just a few lines of code, developers can create a modern, single-page dashboard that includes built-in authentication, authorization, and support for multiple databases and data sources, including CSV and Excel files.

In addition, the Dashboard Framework includes support for multi-languages and multi-themes, making it easy to create custom dashboards that fit your brand and language preferences. And with widget lazy loading support, developers can ensure that the dashboard is fast and responsive, even when working with large datasets.

The Dashboard Framework is also flexible and can work within other popular PHP frameworks, including Laravel, CodeIgniter, Yii2, and Symfony. This makes it easy to integrate the Dashboard Framework into your existing workflow and start building great dashboard systems for your clients or your own business.

View Dashboard Framework Demo

In conclusion, while dashboards and admin panels serve distinct purposes, the Dashboard Framework of KoolReport makes it easy to create a tool that covers both functionalities. With its powerful features and flexible integration options, the Dashboard Framework is a valuable tool for any developer looking to build a modern, data-driven application.

KoolReport Q4-2021 Releases

We are very happy to inform that the Q4-2021 releases have been available. In this releases, we have a new core KoolReport together with 12 new package updates. We will go through each packages' update and note that the biggest change will be at the end.

KoolReport Q4-2021 releases

Core 5.5.0

KoolReport core 5.5.0 has been releases with ability to use PDODataSource to update/delete data with execute() method. This extent comes from the demand of not just fetching data but also updating database. We added new process called Forward which basically act as a forwarder to branch data with conditions. There also a small update to Google Chart in which the chart can accept more than one annotation text. The last update comes from Table in which we make the removeDuplicate property work with both column names and column orders.

ChartJS 3.0.0

In Chartjs 3.0.0 we introduce Timeline chart which is very useful for representing multiple events' time range. Another big update is multiple axes support. Now users can add multiple Y value axes for multiple data series.

Charttable 1.2.0

With Charttable 1.2.0 we fix a common bug with "columns" property to make Charttable behave similarly to Table or DataTables widget.

CloudExport 4.0.0

In CloudExport 4.0.0, we update the underlying chromeheadlessio/php-client package to prepare support for a near future release of a local cloud export server running in Docker.

DataGrid 7.0.0

Popular DataTables's version 7.0.0 has a new property called rowspan (aliases: removeDuplicate, groupCellsInColumns) which groups/merges verticaly adjacent cells with the same value. It is somewhat similar to row group but has a different visual format which many users like. Many client side functions for expanding/collapsing/toggling row groups, row details are implemented as well. Option for setting a custom ajax url when using server side processing is added as ajaxUrl property.

Excel 9.0.0

A new excel widget, Pivotmatrix, is added in Excel 9.0.0 besides various fixes. PivotMatrix is nearly similar to PivotTable except for a slightly different and improved excel layout.

Export 5.1.0

Export 5.1.0 introduces a serverLocalAddress option in case a report server can not access its report resources (js/css/images/fonts/etc) via its domain name and must use a local address like "localhost" or "127.0.0.1".

Morris 3.0.0

In Morris chart 3.0.0, we present strong customization server-side options for hover and format templates.

Pivot 8.1.0

Pivot 8.1.0 brings solid fixes like aggregates' auto meta data, a property name typo (impressively, we know) to an already full-featured package.

Inputs 6.0.0

The DateRanngPicker and DateTimePicker have been fixed a big bug related to calculating this month timeframe. The CheckBoxList and RadioList also are improved with changing bootstrap.

QueryBuilder 3.1.0

QueryBuilder is working just great, only received a small bug fix in generating delete query which happens in very rare case. Thanks to our beloved customer Michael to spot this issue.

Dashboard 3.0.0

Stepping from version 2.0.0 to 3.0.0, Dashboard has been put under a huge operation with many improvements and bug fixes. There were about 50 changes recorded in our changelog for version 3.0.0.

The biggest feature in Dashboard is the Admin Panel. With this feature, you can construct a beautiful admin panel to administer your data, your application operation or even your business. Writing only few lines of code, you can implement a full CRUD system to admin your resources. But it does not stop there, CRUD is just a basic feature of it. Admin Panel is very flexible that allows you to define your own list of glasses to view your data in different angles, to construct your own data filtering and to build your own actions on each piece of your data. Building on top of powerful KoolReport Pro and Dashboard Framework, Admin Panel is the best of both worlds: A powerful admin panel and an advanced KPI dashboard system. And not to forget, Admin Panel is developed as a part of Dashboard Framework so if you have Dashboard Framework license, you have Admin Panel features available NOW.

View Dashboard & AdminPanel's Demo

The Dashboard Framework now has a new notification system. In every actions of Dashboard or Widget, you can return an notification object like Alert, Confirm, Note or even a raw javascript code to be executed at client-side.

In this new version, we have provided the Excel and CSV exporting capability as our promise to you from the last version.

It is hard to list all changes here, for details you can have a look at our Dashboard's changelog.

Although we incorporated many new features into Dashboard Framework, we maintained a solid backward compatibility so you feel free to upgrade to new Dashboard 3.0.0.

Our road map

Despite of the Covid-19 epidemic crisis, our team have successfully managed our constant releases to make sure that bugs are fixed, new features are available, support requests are solved. Our next plans & products for 2022 will be:

  1. Continue improving KoolReport and its packages
  2. Perfect the Dashboard Framework: new capabilities, new themes .etc
  3. Construct Dashboard Builder, a drag and drop GUI to construct dashboard & admin panel.
  4. Dockerize our Chromeheadlessio service to provide on-premise PDF generator solution.
  5. Provide off-the-shelf OLAP solution.

Thank you very much!

<3 koolreport team

There are some rumors that you may want to hear

Welcome to KoolReport's rumor channel. Today I will tell your some secrets about their products that you may not know.

KoolReport secret that you may not know

First: KoolReport Core 5.1.0 was released

The new version 5.1.0 was released with improvements such as better datasource functionality, PHP8 compatibility together with some minor bug fixes. It is actually not a rumor, I just took the information from their change log.

Second: Many packages got updated

I heard that together with new version of KoolReport Core, many packages got updated:

  1. Amazing 1.7.0: Fix browser console warning
  2. BarCode 2.1.0: Able to save barcode to file
  3. CloudExport 3.0.1: Able to looking for resource link within CSS file
  4. ChartTable 1.1.0: Remove the resource-dependency of ChartTable on other packages so that it can work alone
  5. ChartJs 2.5.1: Smoother plugins integration
  6. D3 1.6.0: Working better at client-side
  7. DataGrid 6.0.0: Great enhancements for clientRowGroup and server-side searching functionality
  8. DrillDown 3.5.0: Ability to set global scope variables
  9. Excel 8.5.0: Adding "removeDuplicate" feature to Table and fix issue of number formatting in Excel
  10. Pivot 8.0.0: Add ability to initiate silently and shown on-demand.
  11. Query Builder 3.0.0: Now able to generate call procedure
  12. VisualQuery 2.0.0: A complete makeover from version 1.0

The above upgrades of the core and packages make the new KoolReport Pro 5.7.0. They maintain strong backward compatibility so we can feel free to upgrade to latest version.

Third: A new and more powerful Dashboard Framework 2.0.0

I also heard the Dashboard Framework has gone through a BIG surgery from version 1.0.0 to much more powerful v2.0.0 with more than 50 changes. Its best new features are:

  1. Extend datasource connection to SQLite and Oracle
  2. Improve debugMode to show unexpected error
  3. Adding Logging system that able to report issue via multiple channels
  4. Improve Metrics behaviors
  5. Integrate full text search into Dashboard table
  6. Bring new widgets on board: DrillDown, PivotTable, D3 and ChartJs
  7. Ability to call procedure from datasource
  8. Incorporate DetailView into widget and let user view data behind any charts
  9. Increase the flexibility in settings property with anonymous function
  10. Able to export dashboard or widgets to PDF

Beside, I heard the next version of Dashboard will have a big feature to help us manage our application's database. The name of it was not yet confirmed BUT it is promised to be the most flexible built-in CRUD+. Despite of all improvements took or will take place, someone told me that the price of Dashboard Framework will not change whatsoever. Can you believe it?

Alright, that's all for the rumors!

Have a great day and looking forward to seeing you in the next episode.

<3 koolreport team

Why's so hassle to create KPI dashboard?

It should be fun and easy to build. In KooPHP inc, we always keep in mind one thing "Developer must be happy!" because only when happy, he can build the whole world.

php dashboard open source

It sounds a bit exaggerated but it is true that if we want to build something bigger, we need to free our mind from hassle and focus strongly on main things.

Building a dashboard is not an exception. While what we should focus on is the content of dashboard such as "how data is available and organized?" "what chart types should be used to maximize user's understanding of data?", those tedious tasks like creating user login form, building menus, authorization, CSS styling keep eroding our energy. Sadly, those tedious tasks are essential and we can not escape from.

Understanding the pain, we built a solution called Dashboard Framework. The framework handles for you all those hassle tasks and let you concentrate on what really matter. Some of its features are:

  1. Built-in authentication
  2. Allow authorization from application to data field
  3. Work with MySQL, Postgres, SQL Server, SQLite
  4. Support data from CSV, Excel files
  5. Support Data Caching at widget level
  6. Support multi-languages
  7. Support Multi-themes
  8. Beautiful single page application
  9. Support lazy loading for widgets
  10. Flexible three levels organized menus
  11. Work with other frameworks like Laravel, CodeIgniter, Yii2, Symfony

Phew! That's a lot of listings but those are not all. So you see, when you own a framework like this, why hassle can bother you from building great dashboard system for yourself or for your clients. Saving tons of time & efforts, keeping you focus on the importance, making you more productive, helping to serve more clients and bringing you more income eventually. If you feel our words unbelievable, let see its beauty and simplicity from the links below.

To see how beautiful it is, view our demo!

To see how simple it is, view dashboard source-code on Github!

Dashboard Framework will be your shortcut into the world of modern data reporting. With all of its benefits, we hope to have chance to serve you as our customer.

GET IT NOW!

Looking forward to serving you.

<3 KoolReport Team


KoolReport helps to analyze your data and ultimately turn them into visual reports or dynamic dashboards.

"KoolReport helps me very much in creating data report for my corporate! Keep up your good work!"

Alain Melsens

"The first use of your product. I was impressed by its easiness and powerfulness. This product is a great product and amazing."

Dr. Lew Choy Onn

"Fantastic framework for reporting!"

Greg Schneider
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