MicroStrategy ONE

How to Add Custom Widgets to Documents

You can display data in a grid or graph report as a custom widget in MicroStrategy Web. You can:

  • Display data in a specific report as a custom widget: The selected report is replaced with a custom widget, and the rest of the document is displayed normally.
  • Display a document layout as a custom widget: The layout is displayed as a custom widget using the data in the first report in the layout. If the document is a multi-layout document, you can display a different custom widget for each layout in the document.
  • Display a document as a custom widget: The document is displayed as a custom widget using the data in the first report in the document.

Custom widgets can be created using the MicroStrategy SDK. For more information about custom widgets and their use, see the MicroStrategy Developer Library (MSDL) provided with MicroStrategy SDK.

To Add a Custom Widget to a Document

  1. Open the document in Design Mode or Editable Mode.
  2. Do one of the following:
    • To display a specific report as a custom widget, select the report that contains the data you want to use to display the widget. From the Tools menu, select Report Custom Visualizations.
    • To display a layout in the document as a custom widget, click the tab of the layout that you want to display as a custom widget. From the Tools menu, select Layout Custom Visualizations.
    • To display the document as a custom widget, from the Tools menu, select Document Custom Visualizations.
  3. Select the Enable this report to use custom visualizations checkbox.
  4. From the Available list, select the widgets that you want to display. You can hold CTRL and click to select multiple widgets.

  5. Click the right arrow to move the widgets into the Selected list. Sort the widgets by selecting one, and clicking the up or down arrows to change their order.

    The first widget in the Selected list is the widget displayed in the document by default. However, if you add at least two custom widgets to the Selected list, you can quickly switch between which of these widget types to use to display the widget. For steps to switch between widget types, see To Switch the Display of a Custom Widget to a Different Widget Type.

  6. Select the Set view mode to custom visualization checkbox.

  7. You can specify additional options for a custom widget, as follows:

    • To select additional reports in the document to provide data for the widget, click Secondary Data Sources. The Secondary Data Sources dialog box opens.
      1. From the Available list, select the report to use to provide data.
      2. Click the right arrow to move the reports into the Selected list. Sort the reports by selecting one, and clicking the up or down arrows to change their order.
      3. Click OK.
    • To specify additional options for the widget, click Visualization Properties. Select the desired options, then click OK.

    Some options may not be available, depending on the custom widget selected.

  8. Click OK.

Once you have added a custom widget to a document, you can quickly switch the display of the widget to a different widget type, if you have defined at least two widget types above. For example, a custom widget is displayed as a Multi Control Visualization. You can choose to switch the display to a Table widget by selecting Table from a drop-down, as shown in the image below. Steps are below to switch the widget type of a custom widget.

Selecting the custom widget to use to display a report

To Switch the Display of a Custom Widget to a Different Widget Type

  1. Open the document in Design Mode or Editable Mode.
  2. Click the Grid tab.
  3. From the drop-down on the document's toolbar, select the type of custom widget to display.

Related Topics

How to Display Reports as Widgets

Secondary Data Sources Dialog Box