ILOG JViews Diagrammer can be used to create diagrams as well as business and industrial dashboards. JViews Diagrammer provides a range of tools, components, and services for modeling and managing business systems for all of these types of diagrams and dashboards.

Diagrams 
Diagrams are used to model and manage a business system’s objects and its interconnecting links. The systems can be physically connected entities, such as communications networks, or logically connected, as in a process flowchart. As companies grow and become more complex, diagrams help them maintain order, spot problems and find ways to improve efficiency.

To be useful to the viewer, a diagram's elements—its nodes and links—must present information meaningfully. These elements may be created manually by the user, or automatically by the system, and may have to be updated to show status when underlying information changes. In all cases, the diagram’s layout should be clear and well organized, without overlapping graphics.

Diagrams for business processing modeling (left) and network monitoring (right). Enlarge thumbnails (opens a new window).

Business dashboards 
Many business situations require graphical monitoring displays for detecting and solving problems. These displays are often referred to as business dashboards in the business intelligence domain. They help operational managers oversee the key performance indicators (KPIs) of important business processes, such as a sales pipeline.

These KPIs are often displayed in simple graphics like gauges and charts, providing easily understandable means for the end user to grasp the current business situation. On the back end, the business dashboard can be connected to a variety of business systems that provide metrics for throughput, quality, and the like. Ideally, managers can interact with the dashboard to get more information or to adjust resources on the fly.

Two business dashboards for monitoring key performance indicators. Enlarge thumbnails (opens a new window).

Industrial dashboards
Users in industrial domains refer to these displays as industrial dashboards, or as process control or supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) applications. These applications are used to show the current status of physical equipment, such as machines, tanks, production processes and transport pipes. For example, a background drawing can be made from either a floor plan or a drawing imported from a CAD tool. The graphic objects overlaid on the background visually represent the physical equipment (gauges, dials, meters, or state objects) measured. A flexible connection between a real-time data repository and graphics on the dashboard is required for this type of display.

Industrial dashboards must be easily customized to match the underlying activity. More importantly, they should be configurable and editable on the fly, depending on operational needs.

Industrial dashboards for factory process control (left) and floor supervision (right). Enlarge thumbnails (opens a new window).