Superset#

We have been using APACHE Superset to build dashboards, and return results to users. It is similar to PowerBI and Tableau, but open source and free. It was originally developed by AirBnB. We run a dockererised version of the dashboard on the standard port 8080, and you can reach the log-in page for our instance at http://uclvlddpragae08:8088/. You’ll need access to the GAE, and to be familiar with git and docker if you wish to deploy your own version. Don’t forget to update the proxy settings before docker-compose up -d.

superset-ids-demo

Once installed then to build a dashboard, you need the following steps.

  1. Log in to Superset

  2. Connect a database (e.g. the UDS)

  3. Connect to a data set within the database (e.g. a table within a schema)

  4. Build a chart using the point and click interface

  5. Place the chart on a dashboard

Issues/Todos

  • dates need to be cast as timestamps for some charts. You can do this using a calculated column (e.g. mydate::timestamp)

  • timezone need to be aligned to UTC (e.g. timestamp('UTC', mytimestamp)).

  • permissions are tricky and as yet I have not been able to find an implementation that doesn’t give access to row level data