Creating selectors for elements on Grid/Graphs

Before you begin

You should be familiar with the various properties that define how a selector looks and what it controls, such as target and source. See Defining selectors for descriptions.

You can create a selector that allows a user to choose which elements to display in a Grid/Graph. These elements can be from an attribute, a custom group, or a consolidation on the Grid/Graph. Selectors work in MicroStrategy Web only.

You can choose to either automatically maintain the targets of attribute and metric selectors, or manually define these targets.

• 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 all types of selectors.

For more information on automatically maintaining targets, including instructions to enable or disable it, see Automatically maintaining targets for selectors.

You can choose to either include or exclude the selected elements from the target Grid/Graph. This means that the attributes that a user chooses in the selector can display in the target, or they can be hidden. For examples, see Determining whether the selector includes or excludes data: selection type. Instructions to define the selection type are included below.

Prerequisite

You should have added a Grid/Graph to the document, to use as the target of the selector. For instructions, see Displaying reports in documents: Grid/Graphs. If targets are automatically maintained, and you add a Grid/Graph to the same document section or panel after creating the selector, the Grid/Graph is automatically added as a target.

To create a selector for elements on a Grid/Graph

1. Open a document in the Document Editor. (How?)

2. On the Insert menu, point to Selector, then choose the selector style. When you move the cursor to the Layout area, the pointer becomes crosshairs.

3. Click in the desired section of the Layout area. If you click and drag in the section, you can size the selector.

4. If targets are not automatically maintained, you must manually specify the target of the selector, as described below:

   1. 1. Right-click the selector and choose Select Targets. The selector is outlined in orange to indicate target selection mode is on.

      2. Click the Grid/Graph to specify as the target. The sizing handles of the target are displayed in orange.

      3. Click anywhere in the Layout area to turn target selection mode off.

5. Right-click the new selector, and select Properties. The Properties dialog box opens.

6. Click the Selector tab.

7. Select an attribute, custom group, or consolidation in the Source field. The elements of the source are displayed as items in the selector.

8. You can choose to either include or exclude the selected elements from the target. This means that the items that a user chooses in the selector can display in the target, or they can be hidden. For examples, see Determining whether the selector includes or excludes data: selection type. From the Selection Type drop-down list, select either Include or Exclude.

9. By default, autosubmission is enabled, which means that once a user chooses an item in the selector, the target immediately updates without any additional user interaction. For instructions to disable it, see Disabling automatic submission for selectors in documents.

10. Click OK to return to the document.

Now that you have created the selector, you can modify properties, such as multiple selections and simultaneous display of selector items, and format it.