Inspired by the look of the Panic Status Board, I implemented something (not as pretty) in ASP.NET MVC.
It:
- Supports multiple teams, each with their own dashboard.
- Uses the REST API to TeamCity to query the status of the builds we care about. It displays each build status in a green or red panel, with a nice icon. The build panels should how long the build has been in that state. This is useful to keep track of how long our system tests have been broken for.
- Uses an ODBC connection to BugZilla to query outstanding bug counts for the milestones that we care about. We have Red/Amber/Green thresholds for these, so the dashboard panel is coloured appropriately.
Things I'd like to add to it:
- Team calendar, so we can see at a glance who's on vacation during the next couple of iterations.
- Current iteration, current velocity.
- Important team dates: ends of iterations, release targets, company events, etc.
At the moment, the ASP.NET MVC controller generates a simple HTML page which uses <meta http-equiv="refresh" ...>. There's no JavaScript involved.
We managed to blag an unused PC and monitor from the IT department and configured Windows to auto-logon and to start Firefox in kiosk mode, using the Full Fullscreen add-on. The monitor sits on a spare drawer pedestal near to the spot where we do our daily standups.
Aside: we tried IE, but it doesn't do CSS-only rounded corners, and Chrome wouldn't work reliably at startup.
I think it's been fairly successful. Other teams in the company have asked to use it too, which is cool.