Rally Software

We use the CA Agile Central Excel Add-In to export data in order to create numerous Excel dashboards. We are at a point where users are requesting data updates daily and even on demand throughout the day. The goal is to make this dashboard self service - so with minimal training, a user can automatically refresh the data and use the dashboards for analytics. At this point, I have to refresh the data and distribute the report which is not the most optimal process.

Is there any way to automatically share the Query I built in the Excel Add In with others (besides having them manually re-build the query using their login for 50+ users)?

Another possibility - could a generic read only login be created so anyone who has the Excel file could refresh the data on demand since the query would "belong" to the generic login and you would connect to this generic login?

Any other suggestions?

Connect to SharePoint List?

Connect to Microsoft Power BI?

Looking for an out of the box no cost solution. I'm sure a custom solution could be purchased.

The Database Connector requires technical database support which is not an option.

There's no way that I'm aware of to share the query automatically but security concerns and SSO notwithstanding you could use the "generic account" solution, and if you're on-premise then you wouldn't have SSO anyway.

I've encountered these same concerns as a customer and subscription administrator and in my case we had to take a step back and really look at the business questions being answered by the Excel dashboards. Ultimately we realized that we could construct dashboards using both standard and free community apps in the Agile Central platform that addressed the truly important questions. This removes the "on demand" issue because you're always looking at current information in Agile Central. The dashboards may not look exactly like whatever you're creating in Excel but in my experience stakeholders rapidly come to prefer the immediacy and ease of use of dashboards in the tool.

Hope that helps and feel free to share any specific metrics and dashboard questions here in the forum.