TN 027: Customizing the Dream Report Web Portal Home Page

Owned by Admin
Last updated: Dec 29, 2020
3 min read

Dream Report includes a Web portal (“DR Web”) which enables users to browse a list of reports from the currently running project, to visualize any generated report from the project, generate any report on demand, enter manual data into the Dream Report database, and to generate ad hoc reports and dashboards. While most of the portal configuration can be done from in Dream Report Studio from Web Configuration > Portal Display Options, there are several additional changes you can make to customize the look of the portal, or even to “white label” it. The most common items that customers ask to change on the DRWeb portal are:

  1. Color scheme

  2. Company logo

  3. The <Project Name> text in the top-left header

  4. The Welcome to Ocean Data Systems Reporting Portal text in the top center of the page

  5. Turn on/off miscellaneous display options on the portal – e.g., the “Language Selection” list box

As noted above, most features can be set using the Web Configuration > Portal Display Options settings under the “Project” tab in Dream Report Studio. As shown in items 1. and 2. In the following image, you can use a Custom Logo (and set its size to fit the banner), and choose a Visual Theme (one of about 15 pre-set color schemes). Check the appropriate checkbox to show/hide various features like the Language Selection, Search Bar, Report History, etc.

If you change any of these settings, you need to re-run the “Configure IIS” option either in Studio, or from the Runtime Management Console.

To change the DR Web Portal <Project Name> text in the top-left header of the home page, you can edit the DRWeb.Master file in C:\ODS\Dream Report\DR_Web_Portal. Make a copy of this file before editing. This is the line to edit – in Notepad, replace this highlighted section with the static text you want to display instead:

Editing this file is not a supported “feature”, so make sure you keep a backup copy of the original, and keep a copy of any changes you make.

Finally, to change the Welcome to Ocean Data Systems Reporting Portal text in the top center of the page, Dream Report uses a “look-up” database with text strings in different languages that you can edit – this is an MS Access database named \ODS\Dream Report\DataBase\LexiconWeb.mdb. For example, if you open the LexiconWeb.mdb database with MS Access, under the [English] field, you can change the text string to anything you want:

Important Note: Since these are not officially “supported” changes, make sure to keep backups of any files you change, as the Lexicon database and the DRWeb.Master file will likely get replaced if the software is upgraded to a newer version.

An example of a modified DRWeb portal home page might look as follows: