Chapter 6. Advanced Dashboard Techniques

The previous three chapters set a solid foundation for dashboard development and demonstrated a simple approach to building a framework for efficiency and growth. With the framework in place and the dashboard layout determined, the final step in building a dashboard is to add interactivity. Most interactive dashboards provide a method to filter the objects shown on the screen, and advanced dashboards carry that filtering across multiple screens of the dashboard. The goal of this chapter is to introduce and demonstrate an approach to add filtering options to a dashboard, the steps to filter data based on user selections, and the methods for populating filters across dashboard pages. This chapter covers the following content:

• Populating Dashboard Controls with Database-Driven Values

• Applying User Selected Filters to Limit Data

• Synchronizing User Selections across...

Populating Dashboard Controls with Database-Driven Values

The values available for selection by an end user in a Drop Down or List Box Control can be populated with custom values by either editing the Values property of the object or through the use of programming to dynamically populate a List of Values (LOV) from a set of data contained within a Results or Table section in a document. The use of programming allows the displayed LOV in the Drop Down or List Box control to update as the values of the section change without the need to modify the Interactive Reporting document. This section introduces the processes required to use JavaScript code to generate a LOV for a Drop Down or List Box Control from database values.

Querying Available Values

The concept of Available Values appears throughout the software when working with filters. The term describes a distinct...

Applying User-Selected Filters to Limit Data

Once the filtering options are set on the dashboard, the next step is to configure the application of the filter across all of the dashboard pages within the document. These filters are applied locally to the data in the Results or Table sections or to the desired Query section based on the data refresh strategy. The following sections discuss an efficient approach for applying user-selected local filters in both Drop Down and List Box Controls throughout dashboard pages in a document.

Preparation for Dynamic Limits

The term Dynamic Limits refers to Query or Results filters that are controlled by end user interactivity. These types of limits can be handled a couple of different ways using JavaScript. The most straightforward option is to have any limits that the user can control already positioned...

Synchronizing User Selections across Multiple Dashboards

Synchronizing user selections across Dashboard sections is completed by taking the user selections on one section and applying the selections across all of the Dashboard sections in the document. While the there are many approaches that can be used to execute the synchronization, this section demonstrates one efficient and effective procedure for keeping List Box object selections in sync across multiple dashboards.

The first step in executing the synchronization is to unselect any prior selections for the control across all Dashboard sections. With this approach, of the Controls are now consistent across the sections and are ready for the adding of filter selections. The second step to keeping the filters consistent across the dashboard is to obtain the selected values from one particular...

Summary

The goal of this chapter was to introduce and demonstrate an approach to add filtering options to a dashboard, the steps to filter data based on user selections, and the methods for populating filters across dashboard pages. The chapter began with the steps to populate Dashboard section Controls with values from a database. The method of using available values is introduced and the approach to loading all of the dashboard filters from a single Results section is demonstrated. The chapter continues with an overview of the steps to add user-selected filters to the data sections of an Interactive Reporting document to filter dashboard content from Drop Down and List Box Controls. The method to select all filter values was presented as was the positioning of code within the Dashboard section and Dashboard Framework. The chapter...