Portlets that are Alerts

These types of portlets are typical of "dashboard" portal configurations used for business intelligence. They show a single dimension of data, provide a description for that data, and have a threshold value, which is often user configurable. If the threshold is breached, some event usually occurs to alert the user to the condition.

As a rule of thumb, limit each portlet to a single data dimension. Users who want to monitor several dimensions should have several portlets available on their portal—one for each dimension to be monitored.

Often, these types of portlets also provide a link to a transactional application that enables the user to see more detail and then change the situation that has caused the alert. If you provide such a link, be sure to prepopulate the transactional application with the data driving the portlet display result. Ideally, the user should not need to perform any queries for the initial data view when the application launches.