Patent ID: 7437675

Claim:
A method of monitoring at least one of business and information technology metrics, the method comprising: providing an interface with which a user can specify what metrics to monitor, what type of visual element to use to display monitored information, and how to position the visual element on a screen; and providing a mapping template that can be reused with different values of parameters, the mapping template being configured to convert data to a form useable by a visual element; and creating a monitoring template for use in monitoring the at least one of business metrics and information technology metrics, wherein creating a monitoring template comprises: retrieving a predefined HTML page template, the template including specifications relating to size of cells defining a grid for use in specifying positions of visual elements and refresh rate; setting page level properties, including size of cells and refresh rate; inserting code to calculate metrics to be shown using the visual elements; and for each visual element: sorting a report to compute the state of the visual element; inserting code to dynamically produce the visual element; inserting code to enable editing of a configuration parameter for the visual element; and inserting links for drill down.