Get Fancy with Portlet Factory Graphs: No Dashboard Builders Required

What is the most boring portlet you can think of? How about a portlet showing a bunch of numbers piled up in a table? What if you took the same numbers and presented them in a fancy flash graph? The graph becomes a real eye catcher that keeps the reader from skipping over them.

Everything is easier to sell when it looks good.

Creating graphs in Portlet Factory is easy using the GreenPoint Web Charts builder. It comes in a demo version with Portlet Factory, but it is not free to use. A full license is included with the Dashboard builders, but it requires its own license.

However, you have alternatives. I will show you how to create your own Portlet Factory graphs that reuse open source HTML/JavaScript and Adobe Flash examples. First, I’ll briefly show you what the GreenPoint Web Charts builder looks like. Then I’ll walk you through creating a HTML/JavaScript chart portlet. Finally, I will create the fancy flash chart portlet. The only downside is that you need the Flash player to view the graphs, but most people already have it.

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