Create and host your own Omniscope project and report templates

Omniscope templates are comprehensive projects that pack together data transformation process and interactive reporting capabilities. This feature significantly streamlines the process for users by eliminating the need to start building the model from scratch. Instead, users can simply select from a range of pre-existing projects and reports, then focus solely on customisation or data exploration.

While generic templates are readily available on the projects page, Enterprise users now have the option, from Omniscope Evo version 2023.2, to create and manage their own templates within the platform.

There are two primary use cases that demonstrate the practicality of this feature:

- Productivity booster use case: Collaboration amongst team members becomes more efficient as they can collectively build a repository of useful templates, eliminating redundant work.

- Self-service data exploration use case: templates can be designed in such a way that end users (internal or external) can upload data and view the transformed results in a convenient report format without accessing the intricate workflow details. This capability is particularly valuable for creating a seamless experience for those users who should not have access to the workflow area.

Commencing with Omniscope Evo 2023.2, you can now host customised project templates, prominently displayed on the Project List page. 

How to create your own project template

Step 1: Define the location of the templates storing folder

From the Admin > Licensing area > Refresh your license key.

Now you can define the local templates folder from the 

Admin web app > Web server > Settings section.

In the same place you can choose to hide the Visokio project templates if you wish. 

The Local project templates folder must be a sub-folder of the main Omniscope Folder.

Once you have defined your local project template settings, simply save your changes. 

If you then go to the Project list page, you should see your new folder in the specified location. We recommend using a top-level folder, similar to Macros, for ease of administering permissions and other settings.

Step 2: Create template projects

Creating project templates can be done by following these steps:

1. Move the project into the Templates folder from step 1.
2. Open the project.
3. Navigate to the Workflow and click on the three dots menu.
4. Select "Template settings" to configure the template options manually.

In the Project Template Settings dialog, you can configure information that influences how the template appears in the Project list page.

This includes defining options that trigger specific UI widgets for user configuration before project creation. To make these widgets functional, link the option to the parameter.  Omniscope will automatically connect user input values to the corresponding parameter. 

For example, if you have a parameter defined as file upload and it is configured in the File block, then adding it in the Options section will automatically expose a file upload dialog when the user attempts to create a new project from the template.

In the dialog, you can additionally define blocks to execute and a shared report to open automatically, defining the ux.

Some of the settings can also take parameters that offer choices to the user, for example, a choice of which report to generate, for the workflow models with multiple reports. 

The list of available choices is configured in the parameter settings (in the image below, "Simple report" or "Advanced report").

Important: During the configuration process, you can decide whether the result of the template will be an IOX project file containing the workflow (with or without report blocks) or just the IOR file containing the interactive report only, which is disconnected from the workflow (and the workflow is discarded). 

This report will contain the data it needs, but will no longer receive data updates and will not contain "IOX" in the report URL address.

Step 3: Save your settings - your own project template should now appear in the project templates section.

Permissions

Grant permissions for the Templates folder as you would for any other folder in Omniscope, limiting the access to those users who should be able to create and edit templates - you can restrict certain users from creating 'Project templates' accessible to end-users. 

Additionally, you can hide the Templates folder from all users by selecting 'Hide in parent' in the folder permissions dialog.

Permissions required to create "Project templates"

Any potential template creator must have access to the Templates folder and be able to create projects inside this folder. 

Relevant permissions that should be enabled:

• File management
• Project editor

Permission required to create new project from the existing template

End-users seeking to utilise the existing project templates only require permission to create a project within the designated folder. They do not need access or editing permissions for the templates folder defined in Step 1.

The permissions the user normally requires:

• File management

Note: End-users do not require project editor permissions to create projects from templates, however, you should ensure that if you have created templates that you want Report viewers to be able to create, then make sure that project template settings have a Report block configured with sharing on otherwise once the create a template they will not be able to open the Project.

Step 3: Create a project based on an existing template

In the scenario where templates are used by the internal team to collaborate and share models, every user can create a new folder to create a new project inside, based on one of the templates:

Open the destination folder, then pick a template, either on the sidebar or on the plus button, to create a new project.

In the scenario where the external users or clients are enabled to create self-service projects without getting access to the workflow, it is necessary for the Omniscope administrator to create the destination folder and manage the user access and permissions (e.g. only one user from a company is allowed to access the folder/ manage/edit files OR a group of users from that company is granted access and given the editing rights).

Once the user has opened the project destination folder, they can click on the template to create a new project inside this location.

This is what a template new project prompt might look like in case a) the only param is the fils location or, b) there is another param referenced in the workflow and in the template settings, as seen on the right.

See this article for an example of a template implementation project.