MicroStrategy ONE
Methods to create selectors
Before you begin
You should be familiar with the terminology of selectors, 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 and metric selectors, or manually define these targets. (The targets of a selector are the Grid/Graphs, panel stacks, 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. For more information about automatically maintaining targets for selectors, including instructions to enable and disable the functionality, see Automatically maintaining targets for selectors.
You must always select targets for panel selectors, regardless of whether targets are automatically maintained. To target another selector, automatic target maintenance must be disabled. Alternatively, 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.
You can create a selector in a variety of ways, depending on what the target and source are, as well as personal preference for a particular interface. You can create a new selector:
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With a panel stack as the target. For instructions, see Creating selectors for panel stacks.
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With a Grid/Graph as the target and elements as the source. For instructions, see Creating selectors for elements on Grid/Graphs.
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With an attribute as the source. For instructions, see Creating selectors from attributes in Dataset Objects.
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With a Grid/Graph as the target and a metric as the source. For instructions, see Creating selectors for metrics on Grid/Graphs.
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That filters a metric value. For instructions, see Creating selectors that filter metric values.
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That updates a dynamic text field on a panel stack. For instructions, see Creating selectors that update dynamic text fields on panel stacks.
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That is formatted differently in Flash Mode and becomes interactive when a user hovers the cursor over it. An example is the Fish Eye selector, which magnifies the item that is hovered over, while the remaining items are minimized and displayed in the background of the selector. For more information and instructions, see Creating Fish Eye Selectors and Creating Date Selection widgets.
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With a specific style. For instructions, see Inserting selectors into documents.
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With the same style as the last selector you added. For instructions, see Creating selectors with the same style as the last selector.
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That filters another selector. For instructions, see Creating selectors that target other selectors.
You can also use an attribute on a Grid/Graph as a selector that targets a panel stack or another Grid/Graph. If a user clicks an attribute on the first Grid/Graph, the target changes to display information for only that attribute. For more information, see Enabling Grid/Graphs to control other Grid/Graphs. Automatic selector maintenance applies to these types of selectors, as well. All the Grid/Graphs and panel stacks in the same document section or panel as the selected Grid/Graph are chosen as targets.
After you create a new selector, you can use the Property List or Properties dialog box to change any properties, such as style or action type, of the selector. For example, the default style of a new selector is a drop-down list, which may not always suit your needs. The Property List is the easier method to use, as it is displayed on the same screen as the Layout area. You can also determine whether the selector filters or slices the data:
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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.
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The selections made in a slicing selectors are used to determine which slices of data are combined and shown in the Grid/Graph.
For more details on the differences, including examples, see Applying selections as filters or slices.
The target selection mode allows you to quickly and easily choose the target of the selector. When in target selection mode you click the Grid/Graph or panel stack to use as the target of the selector. For more information, see Selecting targets for selectors. Target selection mode is not available when targets are automatically maintained.