Any question answered...

If I understand you correctly:

• The system cannot yet produce the data to drive the dashboard
  
• The dashboard, now, need only exist for the purposes of a 'demo', which I assume is some kind of proof of concept test / requirements validation / sales marketing thing
  
  

So instead of building something 'real' that is both open to interface and requirements changes, discover exactly what the dashboard need do for the demo then fake that using anything good enough. You'll need to discover what good enough looks like though, but some things I've used in the past, in order of increasing realism / complexity

• Paper sketches
  
• Powerpoint
  
• Photoshop
  
• Keynote
  
• Visio
  
• Axure
  
• Flash
  
• PHP CodeIgnitor & JQuery
  
• Raw Ruby + SQL & HTML / CSS
  
  

My understanding could be completely wrong though, YMMV etc.

To clarify:

The system can produce the data to drive the dashboard, in the form of text strings, so something that can update a graph and summary table view using this data or a fake version will suffice.

The dashboard, now, need only exist for the purposes of a 'demo', which I assume is some kind of proof of concept test thing -Correct. Essentially, we want to be able to show if something in the system changes, the dashboard can be refreshed to reflect the change.

I think realism is definitely an important factor. Which leaves me with the following:

• Axure (never used but willing to give it a go)
  
• Flash (never used but willing to give it a go)
  
• PHP CodeIgnitor & JQuery
  
• Raw Ruby + SQL & HTML / CSS
  
  

With my novice understanding, if there is a script for how the presentation is going to go, would it be too obvious to make several HTML pages with a 'refresh' button, which is actually a link to a similar looking pages but with different stats (and faking that is it connected to the system)?

Thanks for all the help, you're a lifesaver!