MicroStrategy ONE

Inserting selectors into documents

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.

Selectors provide Report Services (RS) dashboards with interactivity, allowing each user to change how he sees the data. A selector can change panels in a panel stack, another selector, the focus of a Grid/Graph, or a dynamic text field (a text field that is a reference to an object on a report) in a panel stack.

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

  • If targets are automatically maintained in the layout, attribute, metric, and metric condition 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. Manually selecting targets also allows you to choose another selector as the target of this new selector. For instructions, see Creating selectors that target other selectors.

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

Prerequisites

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

This procedure does not include instructions on creating a selector that targets another selector. For those instructions, see Creating selectors that target other selectors.

To insert a selector

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

  2. Expand the section where you want the selector by clicking the plus sign next to the section name.

  3. Click the Selector icon in the toolbar, and then choose how to display the selector from the drop-down list. The styles are listed below:

    • Drop-down

    • Slider

    • Listbox

    • Radio Buttons

    • Check Boxes

    • Button Bar

    • Link Bar

    • Metric Slider

    • Metric Qualification

    • Fish Eye

      The Fish Eye style is viewable only in Flash Mode in MicroStrategy Web. By default, it is displayed as the Listbox style in other modes and views; to change that, modify the DHTML style (see below).

    • When you move the cursor to the Layout area, the pointer becomes crosshairs.

  4. Click in the desired section of the Layout area. If you click and drag in the section, you can size the selector. The selector is added to the document.

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

    You can also set these properties using the Property List.

  6. Click the Selector tab.

  7. Select an Action Type from the drop-down menu:

    • Select attribute elements: When the document is displayed in MicroStrategy Web, the selector will display a list of the elements from the attribute selected in the Source field.

    • Metric condition: When the document is displayed in MicroStrategy Web, the selector will display either a slider or a metric qualification, depending on the DHTML Style. The user can move the slider or complete the qualification to filter the metric's values.

    • Select metric: When the document is displayed in MicroStrategy Web, the selector will display a list of the metrics available in the Grid/Graphs selected as the Target.

      Metrics in text fields within the target are not listed. For example, a panel stack is selected as a Target and contains a metric in a text field. That metric is not displayed in the Select Metrics list.

    • Select panel: When the document is displayed in MicroStrategy Web, the selector will display a list of the panels available in the panel stack selected as the Target.

      If DHTML style is set to Check Boxes, Select Panels is unavailable, since you cannot display multiple panels simultaneously. Select a different DHTML style to display panels.

  8. If you chose Select attribute element as the Action Type, select a Source from the drop-down list.

    The Source list contains all of the attributes in all of the datasets in the document. The selector displays the attribute elements of the attribute selected as the Source.

  9. If you chose Metric Condition as the Action Type, complete the following steps:

    1. Select a Source from the drop-down list. The Source list contains all of the metrics in all of the datasets in the document. The selector filters the target based on the metric selected as the Source.

    2. By default, the metric's values are filtered, but you can change it. From the Qualify On drop-down list, select one of the following:

    3. To filter on the metric's values, select Value.

    4. To rank the metric's value, where 1 is the highest value, and then filter by rank, select Rank Highest.

    5. To rank the metric's value, where 1 is the lowest value, and then filter by rank, select Rank Lowest.

    6. To rank and filter by the number of items in the target, where 1 is the highest value, select Rank % Highest. For example, if the target Grid/Graph contains eight items, the Rank % Highest =25 displays the top two items.

    7. To rank and filter by the number of items in the target, where 1 is the lowest value, select Rank % Lowest. For example, if the target Grid/Graph contains eight items, the Rank % Lowest =25 displays the bottom two items.

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

  10. You can choose to either include or exclude the values 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.

    : TheSelection Typeis unavailable for metric qualification and panel stack selectors.

  11. From the list of Available targets on the right, select Grid/Graph(s), panel stack(s), and/or other selectors and click > to add them to the list of Selected targets.

    • If the Action Type is set to Select Panels, you can only select a single panel stack. The panels in this panel stack are displayed in the selector.

    • If the Action Type is set to Select Elements or Select Metrics, you can select single or multiple Grid/Graphs or panel stacks, or any combination of Grid/Graphs and panel stacks. The target Grid/Graph displays the attribute elements or metrics that the user chooses in the selector.

      If targets are automatically maintained, the Available targets and Selected targets lists are unavailable. All Grid/Graphs and panel stacks in the same document section or panel as the selector are displayed in the Selected targets list. You can disable automatic targets by clicking the Manual Targets button. If you do, all selectors in the layout are no longer automatically maintained, and you can pick another selector as the target of this selector. For more information about disabling automatic target maintenance, see Automatically maintaining targets for selectors.

  12. You can specify how the selector is displayed in Flash Mode in MicroStrategy Web, if it is an interactive Flash-only selector. By default, the selector is displayed the same in Flash Mode as in other modes and views. To select a Flash-only style, change Flash style from Automatic (the default) to Fish Eye Selector or Date Selection. For a further explanation, see Creating Fish Eye Selectors and Creating Date Selection widgets.

  13. You can change the style of the selector by choosing another option from the DHTML style drop-down list. See step 3 for a list of the styles.

    : For a metric condition selector, the only choices areQualificationandSlider.

  14. For Slider, Radio Buttons, Check Boxes, and Button Bar DHTML styles, the Orientation option is available. You can select whether to display the selector horizontally (on a single line from left to right) or vertically (in a single column).

    : For metric condition selectors,Orientationis not available.

  15. A selector can either filter or slice the data:

    • The selections made in a filtering selector are used to filter the underlying dataset before the metric values are aggregated at the level of the Grid/Graph that is displayed in the document. To define the selector to filter data, select the Apply selections as a filtercheck box.

    • The selections made in a slicing selectors are used to determine which slices of data are combined and shown in the Grid/Graph. To define the selector to slice data, clear the Apply selections as a filter check box.

    • For more details on the differences, including examples, see Applying selections as filters or slices.

  16. By default, the selector shows the All option, which allows the user to display all the attribute elements or metrics in the target simultaneously. To disable the All option, clear the Show option for all check box.

    This option is not available if the Action Type is set to Select PanelsorMetric Condition, or the DHTML style is set to Slider and the Allow multiple selections check box is selected.

  17. By default, the All option is displayed as (All) in the selector. You can overwrite this by entering text into the Alias field.

    This option is available only if Show option for All is selected.

  18. By default, the Allow multiple selections option is cleared for the Slider, Listbox, Link Bar, and Button Bar DHTML styles. To allow the user to choose multiple items in the selector, select the Allow multiple selections check box.

    The Allow multiple selections check box allows the user to choose more than one item in the selector. For all other DHTML styles and for metric condition selectors, this check box is unavailable and the option is disabled, since those styles do not support multiple selections. The one exception is Check Boxes, where the option is enabled.

  19. For List Box (when Flash view is enabled), you can allow an item to be selected if the user hovers the cursor over it without clicking. By default, the user must select an item to change the target of the selector. To change this behavior, choose the Change selection on mouseover property.

    If the user points the cursor away from the selector without clicking an item, the target reverts to its previous state.

  20. Click OK to return to the document.