New feature: Pages - what do you think?

In version 4.1 we are introducing a new feature - Pages. I’m curious to hear your thoughts and ideas about it – how would you use it in your organization?

When enabled, Pages allow demonstrating custom HTML pages right in EasyMorph Server. EasyMorph doesn’t create any pages - it only displays one or more existing HTML pages which you created manually or generated using some application. The pages can be anything. Just a few ideas:

  • Welcome page
  • Quick tutorial with a few embedded YouTube videos.
  • Embedded Power BI / Tableau Online / Google Data Studio dashboard, or a mix of them
  • Charts showing EasyMorph Server usage statistics (RAM, CPU, etc.)
  • An HTML table with result data generated by an EasyMorph task

Each space will have their own Pages. There can be multiple custom HTML pages per space. Pages can be switched using a combobox (see screenshot below).

In this screenshot, a Power BI dashboard is displayed in EasyMorph Server.

This is an interesting concept. Today, I do not have anyone other than myself on the EM server and I rarely interact directly with it other than to review jobs/logs. However, I’ve always been curious as to how other people use it.

This looks similar to how msft sharepoint/groups interacts. (Screen shot)

Hi Dmitry,

I do not immediately see the purpose of this. I cannot think of a use case for this feature but maybe I do not understand the potential of it at this moment…

For EM-server a calendar view of all planned tasks is more important for me at this moment so that I have an overview of simultaneous planned tasks which run the EM-server out of memory. Or export option to calendar format that I can import in other calendar software.

For me, other features are far more import in the short run as described in this post

I would definitely use them. Key is that it’s on the SERVER and configurable by SPACE. All really depends on how you are using spaces ie; to collect or disseminate data. Rather than just displaying a directory list of files in the space this would be a more friendly UI. It can also be used to visualize workflow or processing status … Lots of questions about integration (space security) and ability to use parameters to filter what appears. +1 from me

We’re thinking about adding a task trigger button to Pages in the future which would make it possible to design simple and secure single-button single-page apps with complex processing logic under the hood.

Technically, it would require adding a header in HTML page(s), for instance:

<meta name= "easymorph-task" value="296c1e0a-86b6-4af8-870b-5da6f11d02f4">

This will make Pages display a task trigger button (above the embedded HTML page) with its real-time status and the ability to prompt parameters on task start. When triggered, it will prompt for parameters (if configured) and start the designated task (which ID is specified in the meta tag above) and will show its real-time status. When the task is finished it will reload the current HTML page.

This enables a few interesting scenarios:

  1. With tab Tasks and tab Files entirely disabled we get the ability to offer users a simple and secure one-page one-button application that can perform a narrow defined task. Examples:

    • Enter your email, start date, end date and receive by email a specific data extract or pre-calculated dataset.
    • Enter start date, end date, product number and see inventory turnover chart for the specified product
  2. Enable tab Files for uploading, and Pages may become a user-friendly validation tool. Example:

    • Upload a file, trigger its validation, see validation results right in the browser as a nice dashboard

With the ability to switch between multiple pages and spaces a user will be able work with multiple apps tailored to different scenarios.

Thoughts?

I love that as an option. Today I have done something similar with a webform and reading the results and then triggering actions to occur. This sounds like a better option.

Would you bundle this as a separate license?

No, it would be included into all editions of Server without extra charge.

Do you have in roadmap to allow the configuration of the Page from the EM client ?

Thanks
Leonardo

Hi Leonardo,

no we don’t. Can you elaborate a bit how you would use such feature?

Add a Pages tab in the client where the user can build the html page (header,body… connection(eventually), embedding) with drag and drop functionalities.