TheDashboard is a PowerShell module that generates nice HTML dashboard that's main goal is to integrate multiple reports created by other PowerShell modules. It's main goal is to provide a single place to see all the information you need. It's not meant to be a replacement for other modules, but rather a way to integrate them into a single place.
A lot of modules that I've created over the years such as Tesimo, ADEssentials, GPOZaurr, or other external products such as PingCastle generate HTML output. While using those modules is great, it's not always easy to see all the information in one place. TheDashboard solves this problem.
The main feature of TheDashboard is to generate HTML report that can be used to see all the information in one place. While doing so, TheDashboard provides additional insights so that the picture of infrastructure is more complete.
-
Gages with quick overview:
- Active Directory - Total number of computers
- Active Directory - Total number of users
- Active Directory - Total number of groups
- Active Directory - Total number of group policies
-
Panels available for quick overview
- Active Directory - Users changed password in last XXX days
- Active Directory - Users with password never expires
- Active Directory - Users with password expired in last XXX days
- Active Directory - Users with password expiring in next XXX days
- Active Directory - Computers with password last set over XXX days ago
Following example shows how to generate a dashboard
Start-TheDashboard -HTMLPath "$PSScriptRoot\Reports\Index.html" -Logo 'https://evotec.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Logo-evotec-bb.png' -ShowHTML {
# Gather data for gages
$Today = Get-Date
$Forest = Get-ADForest
$AllUsers = $Forest.Domains | ForEach-Object { Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties 'DistinguishedName' -Server $_ }
$AllComputers = $Forest.Domains | ForEach-Object { Get-ADComputer -Filter * -Properties 'DistinguishedName' -Server $_ }
$AllGroups = $Forest.Domains | ForEach-Object { Get-ADGroup -Filter * -Server $_ }
$AllGroupPolicies = $Forest.Domains | ForEach-Object { Get-GPO -All -Domain $_ }
# Top level gages
New-DashboardGage -Label 'Users' -MinValue 0 -MaxValue 500 -Value $AllUsers.Count -Date $Today
New-DashboardGage -Label 'Computers' -MinValue 0 -MaxValue 200 -Value $AllComputers.Count -Date $Today
New-DashboardGage -Label 'Groups' -MinValue 0 -MaxValue 200 -Value $AllGroups.Count -Date $Today
New-DashboardGage -Label 'Group Policies' -MinValue 0 -MaxValue 200 -Value $AllGroupPolicies.Count -Date $Today
# Folder definitions
New-DashboardFolder -Name 'ActiveDirectory' -IconBrands gofore -UrlName 'ActiveDirectory' -Path $PSScriptRoot\Reports\ActiveDirectory
New-DashboardFolder -Name 'GroupPolicies' -IconBrands android -UrlName 'GPO' -Path $PSScriptRoot\Reports\GroupPolicies
New-DashboardFolder -Name 'DomainControllers' -IconBrands android -UrlName 'DomainControllers' -Path $PSScriptRoot\Reports\DomainControllers
# Global Replacements
New-DashboardReplacement -SplitOn "_" -AddSpaceToName
New-DashboardReplacement -BeforeSplit @{
'GPOZaurr' = ''
'PingCastle-' = ''
'Testimo' = ''
'GroupMembership-' = ''
'_Regional' = ' Regional'
}
New-DashboardReplacement -AfterSplit @{
'G P O' = 'GPO'
'L A P S' = 'LAPS'
'L D A P' = 'LDAP'
'K R B G T' = 'KRBGT'
'I N S' = 'INS'
'I T R X X' = 'ITRXX'
'A D' = 'AD'
'D H C P' = 'DHCP'
'D F S' = 'DFS'
'D C' = 'DC'
}
New-DashboardLimit -LimitItem 1 -IncludeHistory
} -StatisticsPath "$PSScriptRoot\Dashboard.xml" -Verbose -Online
Following example shows how to generate a dashboard
Start-TheDashboard -HTMLPath "$PSScriptRoot\Reports\Index.html" -Logo 'https://evotec.xyz/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Logo-evotec-bb.png' -ShowHTML {
$Today = Get-Date
$Forest = Get-ADForest
$AllUsers = $Forest.Domains | ForEach-Object { Get-ADUser -Filter * -Properties 'DistinguishedName' -Server $_ }
$AllComputers = $Forest.Domains | ForEach-Object { Get-ADComputer -Filter * -Properties 'DistinguishedName' -Server $_ }
$AllGroups = $Forest.Domains | ForEach-Object { Get-ADGroup -Filter * -Server $_ }
$AllGroupPolicies = $Forest.Domains | ForEach-Object { Get-GPO -All -Domain $_ }
New-DashboardGage -Label 'Users' -MinValue 0 -MaxValue 500 -Value $AllUsers.Count -Date $Today
New-DashboardGage -Label 'Computers' -MinValue 0 -MaxValue 200 -Value $AllComputers.Count -Date $Today
New-DashboardGage -Label 'Groups' -MinValue 0 -MaxValue 200 -Value $AllGroups.Count -Date $Today
New-DashboardGage -Label 'Group Policies' -MinValue 0 -MaxValue 200 -Value $AllGroupPolicies.Count -Date $Today
New-DashboardFolder -Name 'ADEssentials' -IconBrands gofore -UrlName 'ADEssentials' -Path $PSScriptRoot\Reports\ADEssentials {
New-DashboardReplacement -SplitOn "_" -AddSpaceToName
New-DashboardReplacement -BeforeSplit @{
'GPOZaurr' = ''
'PingCastle-' = ''
'Testimo' = ''
'GroupMembership-' = ''
'_Regional' = ' Regional'
}
New-DashboardReplacement -AfterSplit @{
'G P O' = 'GPO'
'L A P S' = 'LAPS'
'L D A P' = 'LDAP'
'K R B G T' = 'KRBGT'
'I N S' = 'INS'
'I T R X X' = 'ITRXX'
'A D' = 'AD'
}
} -DisableGlobalReplacement
New-DashboardFolder -Name 'GPOZaurr' -IconBrands gofore -UrlName 'GPOzaurr' -Path $PSScriptRoot\Reports\GPOZaurr
New-DashboardReplacement -SplitOn "_" -AddSpaceToName
New-DashboardReplacement -BeforeSplit @{ 'GPOZaurr' = '' }
New-DashboardReplacement -BeforeSplit @{ 'GroupMembership-' = ''; '_Regional' = ' Regional' }
New-DashboardReplacement -BeforeSplit @{
'GPOZaurr' = ''
'PingCastle-' = ''
'Testimo' = ''
}
New-DashboardReplacement -AfterSplit @{ 'G P O' = 'GPO' }, @{ 'L D A P' = 'LDAP' }
New-DashboardReplacement -AfterSplit @{ 'L A P S' = 'LAPS' }, @{ 'K R B G T' = 'KRBGT' }
New-DashboardReplacement -AfterSplit @{ 'A D' = 'AD' }, @{ 'I T R X X' = 'ITRXX' }, @{ 'I N S' = 'INS' }
} -StatisticsPath "$PSScriptRoot\Dashboard.xml" -Verbose -Online -ForceGenerated HTML Dashboard
TheDashboard can be used on any type of server as it generates static files that can be served by any web server. It can run on IIS, Apache, Nginx, or any other web server. However, IIS is the most common one and it's the one I'm going to use in this example. IIS is also the one that I'm most familiar with.
Install all required roles (may be too much, but it works). If you think some roles are not needed, feel free to remove them (open PR/Issue).
$Roles = @(
'Web-Server'
'Web-WebServer'
'Web-Common-Http'
'Web-Default-Doc'
'Web-Dir-Browsing'
'Web-Http-Errors'
'Web-Static-Content'
'Web-Http-Redirect'
'Web-DAV-Publishing'
'Web-Health'
'Web-Http-Logging'
'Web-Performance'
'Web-Stat-Compression'
'Web-Security'
'Web-Filtering'
'Web-IP-Security'
'Web-Url-Auth'
'Web-Windows-Auth'
'Web-App-Dev'
'Web-Net-Ext45'
'Web-Asp-Net45'
'Web-CGI'
'Web-ISAPI-Ext'
'Web-ISAPI-Filter'
'Web-WebSockets'
'Web-Mgmt-Tools'
'Web-Mgmt-Console'
)
Install-WindowsFeature -Name $RolesOnce IIS is installed we need to make sure data is a little bit protected. Enable windows authentication and disable anonymous authentication
Write-Host Disable anonymous authentication
Set-WebConfigurationProperty -Filter '/system.webServer/security/authentication/anonymousAuthentication' -Name 'enabled' -Value 'false' -PSPath 'IIS:\Sites\Default Web Site'
Write-Host Enable windows authentication
Set-WebConfigurationProperty -Filter '/system.webServer/security/authentication/windowsAuthentication' -Name 'enabled' -Value 'true' -PSPath 'IIS:\Sites\Default Web Site'By default HTTP is enabled and it's not a good idea to have it enabled. We need to force redirect to HTTPS. To do that we need to install URL Rewrite module and configure it.
You can download URL Rewrite from https://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/url-rewrite#additionalDownloads
TheDashboard can be hosted on SharePoint Online. It's a little bit more tricky than hosting it on IIS, but it's doable. First of all SharePoint doesn't hosts HTML files directly. It hosts ASPX files. So we need to convert all HTML files to ASPX files. Secondly, SharePoint doesn't like "<%" in the content. It tries to interpret it as a server block. This is a problem because some of the reports generated by PowerShell modules contain "<%" in the content.
TheDashboard module provides three repair commands to help fix common issues with dashboard files:
| Command | Purpose | Common Use Case |
|---|---|---|
Repair-DashboardExtension |
Convert file extensions | Converting .html to .aspx for SharePoint hosting |
Repair-DashboardContent |
Fix content compatibility issues | Remove SharePoint-incompatible characters like <% |
Repair-DashboardEncoding |
Fix encoding issues | Convert UTF-8 with BOM to UTF-8 without BOM for emoji support |
All commands support -WhatIf to preview changes before applying them.
Use this command to convert between .html and .aspx files, which is essential for SharePoint hosting.
# Convert HTML files to ASPX for SharePoint
Repair-DashboardExtension -Path "C:\Reports" -ExtensionFrom ".html" -ExtensionTo ".aspx"
# Convert back from ASPX to HTML if needed
Repair-DashboardExtension -Path "C:\Reports" -ExtensionFrom ".aspx" -ExtensionTo ".html"
# Preview changes with WhatIf
Repair-DashboardExtension -Path "C:\Reports" -ExtensionFrom ".html" -ExtensionTo ".aspx" -WhatIfThis is a fix for a SharePoint error that occurs when APSX file contains "<%"
Sorry, something went wrong. An error occurred during the processing of /sites/TheDashboard/Shared Documents/Gpozaurr_GPOBrokenPartially_2024-03-27_025637.aspx. The server block is not well formed.
The reports created by several scripts (GPOZaurr/ADEssentials/Testimo) contain "<%" in the content, which causes SharePoint to try and interpret it as a server block.
In modules created by Evotec this is used by the Enlighter.JS library and may be added to file content if not used with CDN resources (lack of Online switch).
Since the enlighter.js library is put inside HTML directly it causes issues with SharePoint which tries to interpret it as a server block.
The script will replace "<%" with "<-%" in all files with the .aspx extension in the Reports folder.
Since we don't really use Enlighter.JS capability that uses this regex it should not cause issues
Use the built-in Repair-DashboardContent command:
# Fix SharePoint "<%" server block errors
$SearchString = "_|:|@|#|<-|←|<:|<%|=|=>|⇒|>:"
$ReplaceString = "_|:|@|#|<-|←|<:|<-%|=|=>|⇒|>:"
Repair-DashboardContent -Directory "C:\Reports" -Search $SearchString -Replace $ReplaceString -EscapeRegex
# Remove Content-Security-Policy meta tags from PingCastle reports
$SearchString = '<meta http-equiv="Content-Security-Policy".*?/>'
$ReplaceString = ''
Repair-DashboardContent -Directory "C:\Reports" -Search $SearchString -Replace $ReplaceString
# Process only newer files (last 7 days) and add one minute to modification time
Repair-DashboardContent -Directory "C:\Reports" -Search $SearchString -Replace $ReplaceString -OnlyNewerThan 7 -AddOneMinute
# Preview changes with WhatIf
Repair-DashboardContent -Directory "C:\Reports" -Search "<%" -Replace "<-%" -WhatIfIf you're experiencing issues with emojis or special characters not displaying correctly in your dashboard, it's likely due to encoding issues. UTF-8 with BOM can cause problems in web environments. Use the new Repair-DashboardEncoding function to fix these issues:
# Preview what encoding changes would be made
Repair-DashboardEncoding -Path "C:\Reports" -WhatIf
# Fix encoding issues for all HTML/ASPX files (converts UTF-8 with BOM to UTF-8 without BOM)
Repair-DashboardEncoding -Path "C:\Reports" -CreateBackups
# Fix encoding for specific file types
Repair-DashboardEncoding -Path "C:\Reports" -Extensions @('.html', '.aspx') -TargetEncoding UTF8
# Get detailed results of the repair process
$results = Repair-DashboardEncoding -Path "C:\Reports" -PassThru
$results | Where-Object { $_.HasEmojis -eq $true } | Format-Table FilePath, OriginalEncoding, NewEncoding, StatusThis function will:
- Detect files with UTF-8 BOM encoding
- Convert them to UTF-8 without BOM (better for web compatibility)
- Identify files containing emojis
- Create backups if requested
- Provide detailed reporting of changes made