Lesson 6 – Adding control panels and filtering data in your dashboard : inmydata

Lesson 6 – Adding control panels and filtering data in your dashboard

Introduction

In this lesson you will learn what control panels are, and how to add them to your dashboards. You will also learn how to filter data in your dashboard.

Learning Objectives

When you complete this lesson you will be able to:

Add control panels to your dashboard.
Understand what control panel objects are available, and how to add them to your control panels.
Add filters to objects on your dashboards.
Add and edit filter conditions to filters.
Apply treeview filters to existing filters.

Prerequisites

Before you begin this lesson you should be able to:

Install the inmydata client applications.
Open the dashboard designer.
Understand the dashboard designer interface.
Create and open dashboards.
Add visualisations to your dashboard.

Managing control panels

Control panels allow you to add titles, images, filter parameters, and web elements to a dashboard.

Adding a control panel to a dashboard

Follow these steps to add a control panel to your dashboard:

Drag a control panel from the toolkit on to your dashboard, or select Control panel from the list that appears when you press the Add button in the Dashboard Objects group of the Edit Dashboard tab.
Define the control panel selection panel settings in the Control Panel window (described in more detail below).

Deleting a control panel from a dashboard

To delete the control panel from a dashboard, follow these steps:

Click on the control panel in the dashboard.
Press the Delete button in the Dashboard Objects group of the Edit Dashboard tab.

Managing control panel objects

Each control panel contains one or many control panel objects. The Control Panel window allows you to manage these objects on a particular control panel.

The Control Panel window has a ribbon at the top of the window, and a work area at the bottom of the window.

The ribbon has two tabs, the Panel tab that contains buttons to add, delete and move control panel objects in the control panel. The Objects tab allows you to edit properties of a single control panel object in the control panel.

The work area displays the control panel you are currently working on, and allows you to select a single control panel object on the control panel. To select a control panel object on the control panel, simply press the left mouse button over the control panel object. The selected control panel object is highlighted in the work area.

The different control panel objects that you can add to a control panel are described in the table below:

Object Type	Description
Title	Allows you to add a text title to your control panel object.
Filter Parameter	Provides an object to input a filter value that can be used to filter objects on the dashboard.
Calendar Variables	Calendar variables are date-time period values that are defined against a specific dataset and can be used in filters and calculations
Calculation Variables	Calculation variables are values defined against a specific dataset that can be used in calculated columns in that dataset. For instance, you might define a calculation variable for a currency exchange rate, which is used to convert values between currencies.
Image	Allows you to add an image to the control panel.
Web Element	Allows you to add web elements to a dashboard

Adding a title to a control panel object

Titles allow you to add a text title to your control panel object. To add a title to your control panel object follow these steps:

Press the Title button in the Add group of the Panel tab.
Enter the text you want to appear as your title in the Label dialog box and press OK.
Select the style of the title using the style option in the Label group of the Objects tab.

Adding filter parameters to the control panel

Filter parameters provide an object to input a filter value that can be used to filter objects on the dashboard. Applying the filter to objects on a dashboard is described in detail in the Applying Filters to Objects section below. The different types of filter objects you can add to a control panel are described in the table below:

Type	Description
Drop down list	Allows the user to select a value from a pre-defined list of values.
Date Picker	Allows the user to select a date value.
Slider	A slider control allows the user to select a numeric value between a predefined minimum and maximum.
Check Box	Allows a user to select a true or false value.
Text	Allows the user to enter freeform text

Follow these steps to add a filter parameter to the control panel:

Press the Filter Parameter button in the Add group from the Panel tab.
Select the type of object from the drop down list.
Define the details of the object using the Object tab (described in more detail below).

Defining the details of a drop down list

To define the details of a drop down list filter parameter, follow these steps:

Press the Edit Text button of the Label group in the Objects tab, enter the text for the drop down list label and press OK.
Modify the font and font appearance using the Label group of the Objects tab.
Press the Drop Down Contents button in the Behaviour group of the Objects tab.
Define the drop down list contents (described in more detail below) and press OK.

You can define the contents of the drop down list using data returned from a query, or manually. Both methods are described below.

To define the contents of the drop down list using data returned from a query, follow these steps:

Select the option to populate the drop down list from a query, then select the query data set you want the values to be drawn from.
Select a calendar to use to derive date groupings.
If you want to filter the query data set (perhaps to filter the contents based on another filter parameter), select the filter button to open the Define Filter Condition window to allow you to define the filter.
Select the column you want to use to build a list of values to be displayed in the drop down list.
If the column is a date field, select which time interval you want to be used to build the display values.
You may wish to use a value from column other than the display column in your filter condition. To define a different column as the filter parameter value, select the use a different column check box and select the column you want to use.
Finally, select whether you want the values sorted (by the display value, rather than shown in the original order), whether you want to ignore duplicate items, and whether you want to include an option for all (if all is selected any filter condition based on this filter parameter will be ignored).(NB. if you have opted to use different columns for the display and value columns, two items are only considered duplicate if both columns have the same value).

To define the contents of a drop down list manually, follow these steps:

Select the manual option, then repeatedly enter an item and press Add to add it to the list.
To change the order of values in the list, select the value, then press the green up or down arrows to move its position in the list.

To delete an item from the list, select it in the list then press the Delete key.

When all items are in the list, press OK.

Defining the details of a date picker

Follow these steps to define the details of a date picker:

Press the Edit Text button of the Label group in the Objects tab, enter the text for the date picker label and press OK.
Modify the font and font appearance using the Label group of the Objects tab.

Defining the details of a slider

Follow these steps to define the details of a slider:

Press the Edit Text button of the Label group in the Objects tab, enter the text for the slider label and press OK.
Modify the font and font appearance using the Label group of the Objects tab.
Press the Slider Scale button in the Behaviour group of the Objects tab.
Define the slider scale (described in more detail below).
Define the numeric format (described in more details below) and press OK.

There are two ways you can define the slider scale, using data returned from a query of manually entering the values. Both of these methods are described in details below.

To define the scale of the slider using data returned from a query, follow these steps:

Select the set range of the slider from the minimum and maximum values of a column returned by a query check box.
Select the query data set, and the column you wish to use to calculate the range.

Finally, select whether the slider should show labels and major and minor tick marks.

To define the scale of the slider manually, follow these steps:

Select the set range of the slider manually check box.
Enter a minimum and maximum value for the scale.
Finally, select whether the slider should show labels and major and minor tick marks.

To define the numeric format for a slider, follow these steps:

Select the Numeric Format tab of the Slider Properties window.
Select the maximum number of decimal places you want to show.
Select whether you want to force trailing zero (for instance, the values are currency and you always want two values after the decimal point).

Decide what scaling units to apply to your numeric values on the slider. Scaling provides notation for large values, so for instance 1340 can be displayed as 1.34K, and 2345263 can be displayed as 2.35M. There are a number of scaling units pre-defined for you, however if these do not fit your requirements you can define your own.
To define your own scaling units, select other from the scaling units list. Next supply a comer separated list for the scaling units and the scaling values.
If required, select a currency symbol (value that will be displayed before your numeric values). If the value you want is not in the list, select other and enter your desired value. You can also enter a number suffix, a string that will be displayed after numeric values.

Defining the details of a check box

Follow these steps to define the details of a check box:

Press the Edit Text button of the Label group in the Objects tab, enter the text for the check box label and press OK.
Modify the font and font appearance using the Label group of the Objects tab.

Adding calendar variables to your control panel

Follow these steps to add a calendar variable to your control panel:

Press the Calendar Variable button on the control panel editor Panel tab to open the calendar variable dialog.
Select the dataset the calendar variable belongs to
Select the calendar to be used when deriving date values from calendar periods
Select the calendar variable, and press OK

Adding calculation variables to your control panel

Follow these steps to add a calendar variable to your control panel:

Press the Calculation Variable button on the control panel editor Panel tab to open the calculation variable dialog.
Select the dataset the calculation variable belongs to
Select the calculation variable, and press OK

Moving control panel objects on a control panel

To move a control panel item up or down in the control panel, follow these steps:

Select the control panel object in the work area of the Control Panel window.
Press the Move Up or Move Down button in the Edit group of the Panel tab in the ribbon.

Deleting control panel objects

To remove a control panel object from a control panel, follow these steps:

Select the control panel object in the work area of the Control Panel window.
Press the Delete button in the Edit group of the Panel tab in the ribbon.

Previewing a control panel

The Preview button in the Appearance group of the Panel tab removes the selection highlight from the selected control panel object in the work area. This means the control panel in the work area appears exactly as it will in the dashboard.

Applying filters to objects

Wherever you can select a query data set to apply to an object on the dashboard, you can also apply a filter by pressing the data filter button ( ). Filters can be static, for instance if you want to create a chart that shows orders for a specific country, or linked to a filter parameter or tree view panel, in which case the user can change the filter dynamically by changing the selection in objects on the dashboard.

There are two ways you can define a filter for an object on the dashboard, by using the filter builder or by assigning a tree view selection panel. Each of the three methods is described in detail below.

Using the filter builder

To define a filter using the filter builder, follow these steps:

Select the Filter Builder tab.
Press Add to open the define filter condition window and create a new condition (described in more detail below).
Repeatedly add conditions until your filter is complete
To group conditions, select multiple conditions and press the Group button.
Press OK to finish.

The Define Filter Condition window allows you to define three types of condition, a simple fixed value condition, a list of fixed values condition or a filter parameter condition. Each is described in more detail below.

To define a simple fixed value condition, follow these steps:

Select the logical operator (and/or)
Select the column you want to apply the condition to.
Select the operator to use to compare the column.
Select or enter the value to compare the column to.

To define a list of fixed values condition, follow these steps:

Select the logical operator (and/or)
Select the column you want to apply the condition to.
Select the operator to use to compare the column.
Press the list button
Repeatedly select or enter a value and press Add to add it to the list.

To define a filter parameter condition, follow these steps:

Select the logical operator (and/or)
Select the column you want to apply the condition to.
Select the operator to use to compare the column
Press the filter parameter button ().
Select the filter parameter you want to use.

The filter parameter list may also contain values linked to the user. For more details, contact your administrator. If you create a condition that is linked to a filter parameter, and the filter parameter object is deleted from the dashboard, the condition is changed to be a fixed value condition with the fixed value being the last known value of the filter parameter.

Applying a tree view filter panel filter

As we described earlier in this lesson, tree view filters can be applied to objects from the Tree View Filter Panel Editor window. We can also apply tree view filters to objects from the Define the data Filter window. If an appropriate tree view filter panel (one for which all the columns in the tree view are represented in the objects data set) exists, the Tree View Selection Panel tab will be offered in the Define the data Filter window. Follow these steps to apply a tree view filter to an object:

Selection Panel tab.
Select the treeview in the available list you wish to apply
Press the add button to move the treeview to the selected list

Lesson 6 – Adding control panels and filtering data in your dashboard Print