Receiving Variable Measure Parameters in Dashboards

Arcadia Enterprise has a built-in approach to adjusting the level of granularity of an application at run-time. To do that,

  1. Creating Visuals with Variable Measures
  2. Creating Filters that Control Variable Measures

Variable measures can be implemented independently of variable dimensions. However, this demonstration builds on the work completed in Receiving Variable Dimension Parameters in Dashboards to emphasize just how much control can be built into Arcadia Enterprise applications.

This demonstration uses the US County Population dataset.

Creating Visuals with Variable Measures

You may choose to duplicate the dashboard that you created earlier according to the instructions in Receiving Variable Dimension Parameters in Dashboards. In this case, open the visual, and skip to Step 7 in this workflow.

  1. Open a new dashboard.
  2. In the dashboard, click New Visual.
  3. Under the Data menu, select the US County Population dataset.
  4. Under the Visuals menu choose the Bar Chart visual type.
  5. Populate the shelves of the visual:

    • From Dimension, select and move Stname field onto the X Axis shelf.
    • From Measures, select and move Tot Pop field onto the Y Axis shelf.
    • On the Y Axis shelf, change the aggregation of the Tot Pop field from sum(Tot Pop) to avg(Tot Pop): select Tot Pop field, chose the Aggregates menu, and change the aggregate from Sum to Average.

    • On the Y Axis shelf, click Tot Pop, and under the Field Properties menu select Order, and choose Ascending.
    change aggregation
  6. Click Refresh Visual to see the basic set up of the bar chart.

    Set-up for Visual
    Set-up for Visual
  7. On the Y Axis shelf, click the sum(Tot Pop) field.

    In the Field Properties menu, select [ ] Enter/Edit Expression.

    preparing to edit expression for a measure field
  8. In the Enter/Edit Expression modal window,

    • Change the text to the following expression: <<agg:sum([Tot Pop])>>.
    • Click Validate & Save.
    entering, validating, and saving the expression
  9. Change the name of the visual to Population by <<dim>> and <<agg>>. To have an informative title for the visual, you may add the parameter placeholders to it. The filters configured in Creating Filters that Control Variable Dimensions and Creating Filters that Control Variable Measures supply the required values for <<dim>> and <<agg>>.
  10. Click Save.

Creating Filters that Control Variable Measures

Before starting on this work flow, complete the steps in Creating Visuals with Variable Measures.

  1. In the dashboard, click the Filters tab.
  2. Click Create Custom Filter.

    adding another custom filter to the dashboard
    Adding another Custom Filter to the Dashboard
  3. This creates a New Filter in the filter area of the application, and opens the Settings window modal for that filter.

    viewing the initial settings window modal for a custom filter
    Initial Settings for a Custom Filter
  4. In the Settings modal window, switch to Values tab, and enter the following:

    • Under Title, enter Population Type.
    • Under Output Parameter, enter agg.

      Note that this is the parameter from Creating Visuals with Variable Measures.

    • Under Specified values, enter the following two rows:

      • Value: sum(tot_pop), Label: Total Population
      • Value: sum(tot_male), Label: Total Male Population
      • Value: sum(tot_female), Label: Total Female Population

      Note that these are the original field names in the source table.

    entering Values in the Settings window modal
  5. Switch to Display Settings tab, and select the options Permit only one item to be selected.

    Click Apply.

    Configuring Display Settings for the Variable Measure
    Configuring Display Settings for the Optional Dimension
  6. Save the dashboard.
  7. Switch to dashboard View mode.
  8. In the Population Type filter, select Total Female Population.

    selecting the Population Type filter
  9. Note that the title of the graph and the vertical axis changed to include sum(tot_female).

    To check the parameters of the dashboard, hover the pointer over the (filter) icon at the top right corner. They are dim: Stname, dim.alias: State and agg: sum(tot_female), agg.alias: Total Female Population.

    viewing a filter with variable measures
  10. Notice that you can operate the two filters, Dimension Level and Population Type, independently.

    You can also navigate between the permutations of filter outputs you create by using filter navigation controls at the top right corner.