BloX Overview

BloX widgets are JSON objects that are rendered as HTML in widgets on your dashboard. This enables you to create dynamic and rich content in your widgets that can turn your dashboard into an interactive business app. This enables you to gather insights and take immediate action from within your widget or dashboard. For example, you can create a widget that visualizes an important KPI and displays buttons that, when pressed, activate a webhook that implements a pre-defined action.

BloX widgets offer much more than just a customizable design. With BloX, you can:

  • Add images to your widget
  • Embed iFrames
  • Add custom scripts
  • Organize your content in containers and columns
  • Add multiple types of actions
  • Collect input from your users

Who Should Use BloX?

BloX widgets are JSON objects that render HTML and CSS. Therefore, to create your own interactive BloX, you should have a basic understanding of how JSON works, and have knowledge of HTML and CSS.

To see how to create interactive dashboards with BloX, see:

  • BloX requires Sisense V7.2 or later.
  • When working with the Jump-to-Dashboard add-on, the origin dashboard and the destination (drill) dashboard must be connected to the same data model.
  • The widget's title must not be hidden when changing the position of a Blox widget on the dashboard.
  • If you have users who use Internet Explorer, or you need to export BloX widgets to PDF, use JS ES5 rather than ES6 in your custom actions, and IE-compliant CSS syntax.
  • BloX responsiveness is limited, meaning that the sizes will be adjusted with the background image size or the original widget size, but have some compatibility limitation due to the Sisense overall grid. Test your BloX widgets in different screen sizes.
  • Images from an external source may not load properly in the Excel or PDF reports. See BloX Overview for information about loading images locally.
  • BloX are not compatible with Amazon's Echo.
  • The Custom-Style Plugin overwrites the conditional color of BloX.
  • Items and values are limited to 20 panels each.
  • List view (Carousel: false) is limited to the first 100 items.
  • BloX v1.1 does not support any native Sisense visualization.
  • Once BloX is installed, to display it, on the Admin page, refresh the plugin list.
  • Base64 as an image will cause the widget to load slowly.
BloX is not yet certified for Sisense Mobile. For optimal viewing, Sisense suggests that you design widgets for desktop or widgets for mobile devices according to the guidelines below:
  • Choose images that can fit mobile screens or keep the background as a solid color.
  • Keep all text below 10 point font size.
  • Display a clear call-to-action in the center.
  • Limit your items to one column with no more than five different text and data elements.
  • Limit all icons to "small".

Note:

The social feed template is not supported.


Displaying Images

BloX widgets do not display all default images from templates. Instead, use external images, or refer to images via an absolute path.

Example:

{
"type": "Image",
"Url": "{YOUR_SISENSE-DOMAIN}/plugins/BloX/blox-images/Indicatorleft/headphone.png",
"horizontalAlignment": "center",
"size": "stretch"
}

Or

{
"type": "Image",
"Url": "http://10.50.73.211:30845/plugins/BloX/blox-images/Indicatorleft/headphone.png",
"horizontalAlignment": "center",
"size": "stretch"
}

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Video Explanation

For a video for a short explanation of BloX: