Portal
Welcome to the Loome Portal
The Unified Portal provides a single point of access for all staff in the organization, ranging from roles that are actively involved in building and supporting new data assets, and business staff who search for and consume visualizations such as dashboards and reports.
The Loome Portal will unify and consolidate your assets across Loome, so you can view them all in one catalogue table. You can use Loome to quickly and easily add reports from Power BI and categorize them with your customizable metadata such as business areas and subject areas, enabling you to easily find the report you need, and in turn improve your data stewardship practices. You can also add all your Loome tenants and see all assets from these tenants together in the catalogue, such as your resources in Assist, tasks and jobs in Integrate, and rules in Monitor.
The following user guide will walk you through adding other users, syncing source systems, adding metadata and adding a dashboard.
Getting Started
You will need to have a few things ready before you can start creating dashboards and managing your catalogue.
You will only have to set these steps once, and you can then sync your source systems on a schedule, manage your catalogue and have your chosen users and audiences view assets and dashboards.
| Step | Description | Related Documentation |
|---|---|---|
| Step 1: Add users | These roles will give different permissions to your selected users. You can select which users can manage the catalogue and other content, and which can see read-only resources. | Find more information about user application roles here. |
| Step 2: Add a Source System | Sync a source system to make its assets available in the Portal. | Learn more information about source system syncs here. |
| Step 3: Add Metadata | You can categorize and add more information to your data. | Read more about metadata. |
| Step 4: Add a Dashboard | Create dashboards to view and share information to other users. | Learn about dashboards here. |
Add users
Find the application role page from the top-right settings menu.
Choose the application role, Administrator, Curator and Consumer, from the tabs at the top of the page.
Click on Add found at the top-right of the page and a slide-out will be expanded.
Choose the member type. This can be a user or a group.
If your organization has enabled lookup, you can search for a user or group in your organization.
Choose whether you want to add a User or Group.
Search for a user or group by name in the ‘Add User’ or ‘Add Group’ field.
Click on your chosen users or groups from the dropdown. They will be displayed beneath the dropdown.
You can also manually add an email address by selecting the first option from the dropdown.
Click on Submit to save the chosen user(s) or group(s).
Add a Source System
Click on Add New Source at the top-right of the page.
Choose a source system type from:
- Loome Integrate
- Loome Monitor
- Loome Assist
- Azure Data Factory
- Power BI
Each source system type will have its own required fields.
Learn more about each source system type below. - Loome Integrate, Loome Monitor and Loome Assist - Azure Data Factory - Power BI
Configuration
Provide the name of the source system.
Choose an agent from the dropdown that will be able to access this source system.
Choose the log level of ‘Information’ or ‘Debug’. Information will provide a general level of logs for a sync, while debug will provide further logs.
Choose whether to enable notifications for this source system.
Choose to enable or disable this source system.
If you disable a source system, Loome will not remove your assets, but it will not attempt to sync new and updated items until you enable it again.
Loome Sources - Tenant & API Key Selection
Choose the tenant of your source system that you want to source your assets from.
Choose the API Key from the dropdown or create a new API Key.
Azure Data Factory and Power BI
Azure Data Factory and Power BI will need additional fields for authentication to connect to these sources.
Authenticating to ADF
Choose whether you want to authenticate via ‘Service Principal’, ‘System Assigned’, or ‘User Assigned’ by selecting it from the tabs at the top of the authentication section.
Service Principal
To connect to your Azure Data Factory via Service Principals, please provide your Tenant Id, Client Id and Client Secret.
This will provide the accessible subscriptions and factories in the next dropdown. Learn more about service principals here.
Choose your Subscription from the dropdown.
Choose your Factories from the dropdown.
System Assigned
You will need to have configured a managed identity of System Assigned in Azure for the Loome Agent that will be used with this source system.
Learn more about configuring Managed Identity in Azure here.
The Loome agent selected for this source system will provide your available options in the dropdowns below.
Choose your Subscription from the dropdown.
Choose your Factories from the dropdown.
User Assigned
You will need to have configured a managed identity of User Assigned in Azure for the Loome Agent that will be used with this source system. Learn more about configuring Managed Identity in Azure here.
The Loome agent selected for this source system will provide available options in the dropdowns below.
Provide the Managed Identity Client Id.
Choose your Subscription from the dropdown.
Choose your Factories from the dropdown.
Variable Configuration
Choose to Exclude Set Variable Activities? This will exclude any set variable activities associated to a copy activity from being synced in when set to ‘Yes’.
Choose an Asset Variable Name. If you provide a name in this field, it will replace the copy activity name and the job instance name.
You can add Additional Variables by providing the variable and then clicking on Add beside it. These are the other pipeline variables in any set variable activity, and they will be shown as metadata on the detail page.
Authenticating to Power BI
Choose whether you want to authenticate using a ‘Service Principal’ or ‘Username & Password’ by selecting it from the tabs at the top of the authentication section.
Service Principal
You can use an Azure Service Principal, providing the Client Id and Secret.
Choose to Retrieve these values from Azure KeyVault?
This will retrieve authentication values from Azure KeyVault at runtime for the service principal. It requires a managed identity.
Provide your Tenant Id.
Provide your Client Id.
Provide your Client Secret.
Username & Password
You can use a Power BI Username and Password, in conjunction with an Azure App Registration.
Choose to Retrieve these values from Azure KeyVault?
This will retrieve authentication values from Azure KeyVault at runtime for the service principal. It requires a managed identity.
Provide your Tenant Id and Client Id.
Provide your Power BI Master Account Username (UPN)*.
Enter your Power BI Master Account Password*.
Entity Embedding
Choose whether you want to enable embedding via Do you want to enable embedding?. If enabled, assets will be available to view in the Portal. Otherwise, you will be directed to the source system to view the asset.
What do you want to import?
You can then choose what you want to import from the workspace or app.
Choose your Workspace Import Settings and what types of asset you would like to import from workspaces.
- Dashboards
- Reports
- Datasets
- Tiles
You can choose the types of assets you would like to import from apps using the App Import Settings.
- Dashboards
- Reports
- Tiles
Add Metadata
Add metadata to your assets using attributes.
Choose Attributes from the sub-menu.
Click on Add New Attribute at the top-right of the table.
Provide an Attribute Name.
Add a Description about the attribute.
Choose the type of attribute:
- Boolean
- Date
- Decimal
- Group
- List
- Notes
- Number
- Person
- Text
- URL
Choose the Applicable Entity Types by selecting the checkbox beside the entity type. This attribute will be applied to any Entity Types selected here.
Choose whether it will be a required attribute. If an attribute is required, when editing the information of an asset with this attribute it will need to be completed to save and exit.
Click on Save and you can view this attribute in the table.
You can add values to the attributes when editing an asset on the information page.
Add a Dashboard
To add a new dashboard, click on Actions and under ‘Add New Dashboard’, choose to add a Shared Dashboard or My Dashboard.
Shared Dashboard will create a dashboard that can be viewed by all users of the Portal or users that you have selected to create an audience.
My Dashboard will create a personal dashboard that can only be viewed by you.
Choose My Dashboard or Shared Dashboard.
Provide a name for the dashboard.
If you chose a shared dashboard, choose who this dashboard will be visible to. - Everyone will display this dashboard to everyone in the Portal in the ‘Shared Dashboards’ section. - Selected Audiences will make this dashboard visible only to your selected users. If you choose Selected Audiences, type in the email addresses of users or the name of the group that will be able to view this dashboard. Choose the user or group from the dropdown.
Choose to clone the existing widgets in the current dashboard. This will copy the current dashboard and you can then make changes to the cloned dashboard.
Click Save to create this dashboard.
Add Widgets to your Dashboard
You can now customize the dashboard and add new widgets.
Click on Edit in the Actions dropdown, or click on Edit Mode.
Click on Add Widget.
Choose the type of widget you would like to add.
- Rich Text Widget: Display your chosen text on your dashboard.
- Code Widget: Add custom HTML, CSS or JavaScript to add your own app to the dashboard.
- Metrics Widget: A metrics widget will display your chosen Loome activity metrics on your dashboard.
There are different types of metrics you can display on a dashboard.
- Card: This will display the sum, count or average number on a card. Choose an aggregation type of count, sum or average. Then choose a column to aggregate on.
- Donut: This will display a donut chart of your selected column values. Choose the ‘Count’ aggregation type. Then choose a column to aggregate on.
- Line: This widget will display a line chart with your selection of values and date axis. Choose the ‘Count’ aggregation type. Choose a column to aggregate on, and the date column that will be the axis of the line chart.
- Bar: This will display a bar chart with values from your selected column. Choose the ‘Count’ aggregation type. Then choose a column to aggregate on.
- Table: This will display the data you selected in the previous step and display it as a table.
While creating a widget, a preview of the widget will be displayed below the column selection.
- Integration Widget: Display data from external systems on your dashboard.
- Power BI Report
- Power BI Dashboard
- Power BI Dataset
- Power BI Tile
Save your created widget at the bottom-right of the page and you can then view it in your dashboard.
After you have added your chosen widgets, click on Save at the top-right of the dashboard and it will be available to view for your chosen users.