Bold BI Dashboards Embedding in ASP.NET MVC Sample with Embedded SDK

A GitHub link has been provided to get the sample application, which demonstrates dashboard rendering with a list of dashboards available in your Bold BI server and is followed by steps to create a new embedding application in the ASP.NET MVC on your own.

NOTE: The best way to get started would be reading the Getting Started section of the documentation to start using first. The Getting Started guide gives you enough information that you need to know before working on the sample.

Prerequisites

How to run the sample

Please get the ASP.NET MVC sample from GitHub.
Please ensure you have enabled embed authentication on the embed settings page. If it is not currently enabled, please refer to the following image or detailed instructions to enable it.
To download the embedConfig.json file, please follow this link for reference. Additionally, you can refer to the following image for visual guidance.

Copy the downloaded embedConfig.json file and paste it into the designated location within the application. Please ensure you have placed it in the application, as shown in the following image.

EmbedConfig image

ServerUrl	Dashboard Server BI URL (ex: http://localhost:5000/bi, https://demo.boldbi.com/bi)
SiteIdentifier	For Bold BI Enterprise edition, it should be like site/site1. For Bold BI Cloud, it should be an empty string.
UserEmail	UserEmail of the Admin in your Bold BI, which would be used to get the dashboards list.
EmbedSecret	Get your EmbedSecret key from the Embed tab by enabling the `Enable embed authentication` in the Administration page
Environment	Your Bold BI application environment. (If it is cloud analytics server, use `BoldBI.Environment.Cloud`; if it is your own server, use `BoldBI.Environment.Enterprise`)
DashboardId	Item id of the dashboard to be embedded in your application.
ExpirationTime	Token expiration time. (In the EmbedConfig.json file, the default token expiration time is 10000 seconds)

Run your ASP.NET MVC sample in Visual Studio.

NOTE: If you are facing an error related to bin\roslyn\csc.ex, it indicates that performing a clean build and rebuild is necessary.

The dashboard can be edited in the design mode, and create a new dashboard with the following changes in the renderDashboard() method.

dashboardId	Provide the dashboard id of the dashboard you want to embed in view or edit mode. This property no need to create a new dashboard.
mode	In which mode you want to render dashboard. It can either be 'BoldBI.Mode.View' or 'BoldBI.Mode.Design' mode.
authorizationServer	Url of the 'authorizationServerAPI' action in the application.

   function renderDashboard(dashboardId) {
      var dashboard = BoldBI.create({
          serverUrl: rootUrl + "/" + siteIdentifier,
          dashboardId: dashboardId,//Provide item id to render it in design mode,to create dashboard remove this property   
          embedContainerId: "dashboard",
          embedType: embedType,
          environment: environment, // If Cloud, you should use BoldBI.Environment.Cloud
          width: "100%",
          height: "100%",
          mode: BoldBI.Mode.Design,
          expirationTime: 100000,
          authorizationServer: {
              url: authorizationServerUrl
          }
      });
      dashboard.loadDesigner();
  };

NOTE: We represent the dashboard embedding by default without the dashboard listing sidebar. You must navigate to the dashboardlisting URL (such as https://localhost:44382/home/dashboardlisting) to enable the dashboard list.

How this sample works

Based on the values in the embedConfig.json, you’ll get the user token and validate it, then you can get the dashboard list from the server.
In HomeController.cs, we have added the GetToken() method and GetDashboards() action, which has been called when initializing the DOM in Index.html.
When selecting the dashboard to render, authorize the server URL by calling the AuthorizationServer action with the provided embedConfig.json values.
In the above authorization, we have generated the SignatureUrl with the provided EmbedSecret key and validate embed details in Bold BI. Then only, the dashboard would be rendered in the viewer-section of Index.cshtml.

Steps to create new ASP.NET MVC application to embed dashboard

Start Visual Studio and click Create new project.
Choose ASP.NET Web Application (.NET Framework), and then click Next.
Change the project name as you want, and then click Create.
Choose MVC and Web API, and then click OK.
Please ensure you have enabled embed authentication on the embed settings page. If it is not currently enabled, please refer to the following image or detailed instructions to enable it.
To download the embedConfig.json file, please follow this link for reference. Additionally, you can refer to the following image for visual guidance.
Copy the downloaded embedConfig.json file and paste it into the designated location within the application. Please ensure you have placed it in the application, as shown in the following image.

Create a model class called ApiResponse.cs, to define the API response properties like below. Ensure the System.Runtime.Serialization and System namespaces are in the ApiResponse.cs model file.

    [Serializable]
    [DataContract]
    public class ApiResponse
    {
        /// <summary>
        /// Returns the status of the API.
        /// </summary>
        [DataMember]
        public bool ApiStatus
        {
            get;
            set;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Returns data from the API.
        /// </summary>
        [DataMember]
        public object Data
        {
            get;
            set;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Returns status of the API request.
        /// </summary>
        [DataMember]
        public bool Status
        {
            get;
            set;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Returns the status message from the API.
        /// </summary>
        [DataMember]
        public string StatusMessage
        {
            get;
            set;
        }

        /// <summary>
        /// Returns the message from the API.
        /// </summary>
        [DataMember]
        public string Message
        {
            get;
            set;
        }
   }

Create another model class as DataClass.cs to define the following properties. These properties are used to get the dashboard details from the server. Ensure the System.Runtime.Serialization namespace in the DataClass.cs model file.

    [DataContract]
    public class EmbedClass
    {
       [DataMember]
       public string embedQuerString { get; set; }
       [DataMember]
       public string dashboardServerApiUrl { get; set; }
    }

    public class EmbedDetails
    {
       public string Environment { get; set; }

       public string SiteIdentifier { get; set; }

       public string ServerUrl { get; set; }

       public string EmbedSecret { get; set; }

       public string UserEmail { get; set; }

       public string EmbedType { get; set; }
    
       public string DashboardId { get; set; }
    }

Create another model class as GlobalAppSettings.cs to define the following properties. These properties maintain the embedConfig.json file object within the GlobalAppSettings. Ensure the static BoldBI.Embed.Sample.Models.DataClass namespace in the GlobalAppSettings.cs model file.
```
   public class GlobalAppSettings
   {
      public static EmbedDetails EmbedDetails { get; set; }
   }
```

The following script is mandatory to render the dashboard. Set the Layout = null at the top and replace the following code in your \Views\Home\Index.cshtml page of the <head> tag. Ensure the Models folder is added in the namespaces.

Index.cshml location

    <script type="text/javascript" src="https://cdn.boldbi.com/embedded-sdk/v6.13.11/boldbi-embed.js"></script>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="~/Content/Site.css" />
    <script type="text/javascript" src="~/Scripts/Embed/Index.js"></script>
    <script type="text/javascript">
     var rootUrl = "@GlobalAppSettings.EmbedDetails.ServerUrl";
     var dashboardId = "@GlobalAppSettings.EmbedDetails.DashboardId";
     var siteIdentifier = "@GlobalAppSettings.EmbedDetails.SiteIdentifier";
     var environment = "@GlobalAppSettings.EmbedDetails.Environment";
     var embedType = "@GlobalAppSettings.EmbedDetails.EmbedType";
     var authorizationServerUrl = "@Url.Action("AuthorizationServer", "Home")";
    </script>

In the <body> section, include the <div id="viewer-section"> with a <div id="dashboard"> inside it. This container can be used to render the dashboard.

    <body onload="renderDashboard(dashboardId)">
    <div id="viewer-section">
      <div id="dashboard"></div>
    </div>
    </body>

In the Controllers\HomeController.cs to get particular dashboard details, define an API AuthorizationServer(), which uses the GetSignatureUrl() method to generate the algorithm. In this API, the embedQuerString,userEmail and the value from the GetSignatureUrl() method are appended as the query parameters in the URL to get details of the particular dashboard. Include the Newtonsoft.Json and System.Security.Cryptography namespaces.

    public ActionResult Index()
    {
    string basePath = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory;
    string jsonString = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(Path.Combine(basePath, "embedConfig.json"));
    GlobalAppSettings.EmbedDetails = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<EmbedDetails>(jsonString);
    return View();
    }

    [System.Web.Http.HttpPost]
    [System.Web.Http.Route("AuthorizationServer")]
    public ActionResult AuthorizationServer(string embedQuerString, string dashboardServerApiUrl)
    {
    embedQuerString += "&embed_user_email=" + GlobalAppSettings.EmbedDetails.UserEmail;
    var embedDetailsUrl = "/embed/authorize?" + embedQuerString.ToLower() + "&embed_signature=" + GetSignatureUrl(embedQuerString.ToLower());

    using (var client = new HttpClient())
    {
        client.BaseAddress = new Uri(dashboardServerApiUrl);
        client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Clear();

        var result = client.GetAsync(dashboardServerApiUrl + embedDetailsUrl).Result;
        string resultContent = result.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result;
        return Json(resultContent);
    }
    }

    public string GetSignatureUrl(string message)
    {
    var encoding = new System.Text.UTF8Encoding();
    var keyBytes = encoding.GetBytes(GlobalAppSettings.EmbedDetails.EmbedSecret);
    var messageBytes = encoding.GetBytes(message);
    using (var hmacsha1 = new HMACSHA256(keyBytes))
    {
        var hashMessage = hmacsha1.ComputeHash(messageBytes);
        return Convert.ToBase64String(hashMessage);
    }
    }

Open the Scripts folder. Inside the Scripts folder, create a new folder called Embed. Inside the Embed folder, create a new file called Index.js. Define the renderDashboard() method, an instance is created and called the loadDashboard() method to render the dashboard. TherenderDashboard() method helps to render the dashboard using the Embed SDK file.

Index.cshtml location

   function renderDashboard(dashboardId) {
       var dashboard = BoldBI.create({
           serverUrl: rootUrl + "/" + siteIdentifier, //Dashboard Server BI URL (ex: http://localhost:5000/bi/site/site1, http://demo.boldbi.com/bi/site/site1)
           dashboardId: dashboardId, //Provide the dashboard id of the dashboard you want to embed here.   
           embedContainerId: "dashboard", //DOM id where the dashboard will be rendered, here it is dashboard.
           embedType: embedType,
           environment: environment, // If Cloud, you should use BoldBI.Environment.Cloud
           width: "100%",
           height: "100%",
           mode: BoldBI.Mode.View, //Rendering mode of dashboard it can be Design and View for dashboard.
           expirationTime: 100000, //Set the duration for the token to be alive.
           authorizationServer: {
               url: authorizationServerUrl //URL from which particular dashboard details is obtained from server.
           }      
       });
       dashboard.loadDashboard();
   };

Open the Global.asax.cs file and include the following code sample.

    string basePath = AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory;
    string jsonString = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(Path.Combine(basePath, "embedConfig.json"));
    GlobalAppSettings.EmbedDetails = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<EmbedDetails>(jsonString);

Run your ASP.NET MVC sample in Visual Studio.

Contents

Prerequisites
How to run the sample
How this sample works
Steps to create new ASPNET MVC application to embed dashboard

Contents

Prerequisites
How to run the sample
How this sample works
Steps to create new ASPNET MVC application to embed dashboard

Please provide additional information

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