Visualization makes understanding data easier than a grid display of data. An appealing, understandable image can engage the user and transmit concepts more rapidly than a grid with some numbers. Trends and patterns that are not revealed in text-based data are easily identified by placing data in a visual context.
In the previous chapter, we learned about the basics of document creation and its components, such as panels and selectors. This chapter will cover:
- The dashboard style document and its components
- Basic and advanced visualization techniques
- MicroStrategy and ESRI integration
The dashboard style document is an interactive document, which is usually one-page long and is used to summarize and present key business indicators. The user can control the view of the data using several features, such as widgets, selectors, filters, and so on. There are different types of dashboard that provide different business values, and are listed as follows:
- Performance Summary dashboard:They present data in graphical and tabular form. This type of dashboard is ideal for communicating summary information as a high-level view of the business.
- Metrics dashboard:They present status and trends with graphical indicators, basically displaying metrics to compare the actual performance to goals.
- Dynamic content dashboard: They present many reports in a single dashboard, using multiple layers or panels.
- Dynamic visualization dashboard: They present more data within less space, using interactive widgets and sophisticated formatting.
The following dashboard components help the user to view subsets of data.
A panel is a holder that groups several elements such as a selector, line, image, grid/graph object, and so on. A group of panels is known as a panel stack. Individual panels are stacked on top of each other and the user can flip between these panels using selectors.
Insert panel stack and panels by the following steps :
- Open the document in design mode via MicroStrategy Web.
- Select INSERT | Panel stack and click on the desired location where you want to add the panel stack.
- This adds the panel stack with a single panel.
- Now, to add another panel to the stack, Select the panel stack and place your cursor under the title bar. The toolbar is displayed.
- Click Add panel.
- This adds a new panel and sets it as the current panel:
This panel only contains selectors which gives provision to select the data as needed. This component can only be added using Web.
Insert a filter panel as follows:
- Open the dashboard in design mode.
- Expand the document section and select the panel where you want to insert a filter stack:
- A filter stack can be inserted either by clicking the plus sign (+) next to Add Content on the panel, or clicking INSERT | Filter Panel and then dragging the cursor over the panel. This adds the Filter Panel.
By default, a filter panel is added with a title bar that lets the user clear, expand, or collapse all filters. For example, let's say we need a dashboard to display data for a region where the total sales of bikes was more than 114,000 in 2007; this could be achieved by a filter panel as shown here:
Here, in one filter panel, we have three different selectors to filter the data as the user needs. So now we will define the dashboard's other components in the next section.
A selector provides interactivity for the user and lets the user flip between the panels of the panel stack, target a panel stack to filter the components within it, and display different contents for another selector, metrics, attributes, consolidation, and so on within a grid/graph.
The selector type defines how and what the selector controls. The choice of a selector depends on the target and source selection and the user's interface preference:
Selector types
Add and format a selector as follows:
- Open a document in design mode.
- Select the section in which the Selector needs to be inserted:
- To add a selector, either click INSERT | Selector or, at the top of the panel, click the + sign and select a Selector.
- Drag the cursor to the location where the selector needs to be added.
- Once a selector is added, we can right-click Selector and select Properties and Formatting to format the selector.
- On the Selector tab in the Properties and Formatting window, we can select the action type of the selector, source, and target (most important when defining a selector):
Creating a selector based on the target can be done by clicking the section where the user wants to add an element selector:
|
Selector source |
How to create |
|
Attribute of dataset as source |
Under the dataset objects, right-click on an attribute and then select |
|
Attribute within grid as source |
Within the grid, right-click on any of the attributes and select |
|
Metric within grid as source |
Within the grid, right click on any of the metrics and select |
|
Panel as source |
Under the document structure, right-click on the panel structure and select |
|
Filter metric value |
Click Insert menu, point to Selector, then select either Metric Slider or Metric Qualification. |
Let's take the example of a selector that targets other selectors. We want to display a dashboard with a product subcategory and name. One selector displays the product subcategory and the other selector displays the product name, based on the product subcategory. This can be achieved when the subcategory targets the product name selector. Say the user selects Mountain Bikes in the subcategory; the other selector should only display product names associated with Mountain Bikes. This is shown in the following screenshot:
