Defining a selector - Dashboards and Widgets Creation Guide

When you add a selector to a dashboard, you must define how it looks and what it controls. The following settings define a selector:

• DHTML style is how the items in the selector are displayed in Editable, Interactive, and Express Mode in MicroStrategy Web. (Items are the elements, metrics, or panels, as described in the examples above.) The DHTML style options are:

 Button Bar (use to create tabs in your dashboard)

 Check Boxes

 Drop-down

 Link Bar (use to create tabs in your document):

 Listbox

 Qualification (available only for metric condition selectors; allows users to complete the metric qualification)

 Radio Buttons

 Search Box (available only for element selectors; must be created in MicroStrategy Web). This style allows users to search for an element.

Unlike other selectors, a list of elements is not initially displayed. As

This is particularly convenient if the element list is long.

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You can determine whether the search is performed on the server or the client. To fetch elements directly from the data warehouse or Intelligent Cube as the user performs the search, select the Search on server check box in the Layout options on the Properties and Formatting dialog box.

 Slider (most effective selector for browsing data in a graph; also available for metric condition selectors)

Place the graph slider under or above the graph it will control, then specify the graph as the target of the slider selector. Next, specify one of the attributes or metrics in the graph as the selector's source. This allows an analyst to drag the slider to view different sets of data in a graph and to adjust the size of the slider to view different ranges of values in the graph.

• Flash Style is how the selector is displayed in Flash Mode in

MicroStrategy Web if it is an interactive Flash-only selector. The options are listed below:

 Automatic: The default, which uses the DHTML Style (described above) for Flash Mode.

 Fish Eye Selector: An interactive style of selector that is displayed only in Flash Mode. It magnifies an item when a user hovers the cursor over it. This style of selector is useful because it allows a user to choose from a large list of elements without having to see all of the elements displayed at one time. Any item that a user hovers over or selects remains magnified, while the remaining items are minimized and hidden from view.

Since a Fish Eye Selector is displayed only in Flash Mode, determine how the selector is displayed in non-Flash modes by specifying a DHTML Style (described above).

For more information about creating this type of selector, and an example, see Creating a Fish Eye Selector, page 214.

 Date Selection: An interactive style of selector that is displayed only in Flash Mode. It is a calendar selector that allows you to select which dates you want to see data about in a dashboard. You are able to see all of the dates of each month in the widget, which allows you to be able to select dates more easily.

Since a Date Selection widget is displayed only in Flash Mode, determine how the selector is displayed in non-Flash modes by specifying a DHTML Style (described above).

For more information about creating this type of selector, and an example, see Creating a Date Selection widget, page 205.

• Action Type determines whether the selector displays elements, metrics, metric conditions (such as "greater than $5,000"), or panels.

For element selectors, you can select which forms are displayed in the selector, the order that they are displayed in, and how their elements are sorted. If multiple forms are displayed, you can choose which character separates the different forms. For an example and instructions to display and sort forms, see Displaying and sorting forms in selectors, page 166.

• Source is the attribute, custom group, or consolidation whose elements are displayed in the selector (for an element selector) or the metric whose values are qualified on (for a metric condition selector).

• Selection Type determines whether the selector includes or excludes the selected items from the target. It is available only for element selectors and metric condition slider selectors. For example, the attributes that a user chooses in the selector can display in the target, or they can be hidden. For instructions to specify the selection type, see Determining whether the selector includes or excludes data: selection type, page 132.

• Qualify on determines whether the selector filters metric values or rank, and is available only for metric condition selectors. The options are:

 Value filters the metric's values.

 Rank Highest ranks the metric's values in descending order, and then filters by rank. For example, Rank Highest=2 displays the two highest values.

 Rank Lowest ranks the metric's values in ascending order, and then filters by rank. For example, Rank Lowest=2 displays the two lowest values.

 Rank % Highest ranks and filters by the number of metric values (or rows) in the target, in descending order. For example, if the target

 Rank % Lowest ranks and filters by the number of metric values (or rows) in the target, in ascending order. For example, if the target Grid/Graph contains eight items, the Rank % Lowest =25 displays the two lowest values.

If a title bar is displayed for the metric condition selector, a user can change this setting.

• Target(s) are the Grid/Graphs, panel stacks, and/or other selectors that the selector affects.

 If targets are automatically maintained in the layout, attribute and metric selectors automatically target all Grid/Graphs and panel stacks that are in the same panel or document section as the selector.

 If targets are not automatically maintained, you must manually select the targets when you create selectors.

 You must always select the target for panel selectors, regardless of whether targets are automatically maintained.

 To choose another selector as the target of this selector, you must disable automatic target maintenance and manually select the target.

You can keep automatic target maintenance if you can place the target selector on a panel in the same document section as the source

selector; the source selector will automatically target that panel stack.

For instructions to disable automatic target maintenance, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of automatic and manual target selection, see Automatically maintaining targets for selectors, page 134.

In document Dashboards and Widgets Creation Guide (Page 147-151)