Creating a Dashboard Prompt

Dashboard prompts are a special kind of filter that filter reports embedded on a dashboard.
A dashboard prompt can be a column prompt, variable prompt, image
prompt, or currency prompt.
This section describes how to create and manage the various types of dashboard
prompts.

Screen

Dashboard Prompts Screen

How to …

Create a Dashboard Column Prompt

1. Click the myContents tab, and click Dashboard Prompts in the secondary menu.
The Definition screen appears.

2. Click the  button (New) and choose Column Prompt using the drop-down
menu. The Select Column dialog appears.

3. Select a column and click the OK button. The New Prompt dialog appears.

New Prompt Dialog

The number of columns that you include in a prompt can affect performance. In
general, you should limit the number of columns to as few as possible.

note: The New Prompt dialog includes the Included Code Column field in the following
cases:

– Your business has custom translations enabled through the Translation Workbench
in Xactly Incent, and
– The column to which you are adding the filter supports double columns.
For more information about double columns, see “Understanding Custom Translations
and Double Columns” on page 4.

4. (Optional) Click the  button (Edit formula) to modify the formula for the column.
The Edit Column Formula dialog appears.
Edit the column formula, as appropriate, and click the OK button.

5. To change the label, select the Custom Text checkbox and type the new label in
the Label field.
You can include HTML markup tags in the field, such as <b> and <font> .

6. In the Description field, type a short description for the prompt.
This description is displayed as tooltip text, shown when the user hovers over the
prompt’s label in the dashboard or analysis.

7. In the Operator field, choose the operator using the drop-down list.

8. In the User Input field, choose how you want the prompt interface to ask the user
for input.
The type of the column determines the user input options from which you can
choose.

9. In the Options section, select the prompt options to specify how you want the list
values to be displayed to the user, and how you want the user to interact with the
prompt.
The prompt options vary depending on the user input type that you selected.
In the Default selection field, choose the prompt value or values that users see initially.
If you select a default type, then a field is displayed where you can either
select specific values, or specify how you want the default values to be determined.
For example, if you select SQL Results, you must then supply a SQL statement
to generate the list of values.

10. Click the OK button. The prompt appears in the Definition pane.

11. Click the button (Save Prompt).

Do the following:

a. In the Folders pane, choose a personal or shared folder in which to save the
prompt.
When you save a prompt in one of your personal folders, only you can access
it. When you save it in a shared folder, users with permission to access that
folder can access it too.
Your top-level personal folder is called My Folder. Every user with a unique user
name has a folder called My Folder. This is designed to hold the prompts that
you use most often, and other content that you access frequently.
b. In the Name field, type a name for the prompt.
c. (Optional) In the Description field, type a description for the prompt.
d. Click OK button.

 

Create a Dashboard Image Prompt

1. Click the myContents tab, and click Dashboard Prompts in the secondary menu.
The Definition screen appears.

2. Click the button (New) and choose Image Prompt using the drop-down
menu. The Image Map Prompt Properties dialog appears.

Image Map Prompt Properties Dialog

3. In the Caption field, type a caption for the image prompt.
You can include HTML markup tags in the field, such as and .

4. In the Description field, type a short description for the prompt.
This description is displayed as tooltip text, shown when the user hovers over the
prompt’s label in the dashboard or analysis.

5. In the Image URL field, type the location and name of the image.
The image file must reside on a web server.

6. In the HTML field, type the appropriate HTML <maps>

7. To extract the image map information from the HTML, click the Extract Image Map
from HTML link.
The Image Map Prompt Properties dialog expands to show the area titles, shapes,
and coordinates that were entered in the HTML field. For each area, enter the
name of the column to pass when a user clicks it, and the value to use.

note: The column must be a fully qualified column name in the format Folder.Column
Name.

8. Click the OK button. The prompt appears in the Definition pane.

9. Click the  button (Save Prompt).

Do the following:

a. In the Folders pane, choose a personal or shared folder in which to save the
prompt.
When you save a prompt in one of your personal folders, only you can access
it. When you save it in a shared folder, users with permission to access that
folder can access it too.
Your top-level personal folder is called My Folder. Every user with a unique user
name has a folder called My Folder. This is designed to hold the prompts that
you use most often, and other content that you access frequently.
b. In the Name field, type a name for the prompt.
c. (Optional) In the Description field, type a description for the prompt.
d. Click OK button.

 

Create a Dashboard Variable Prompt

1. Click the myContents tab, and click Dashboard Prompts in the secondary menu.
The Definition screen appears.

2. Click the button (New) and choose Variable Prompt using the drop-down
menu. The New Prompt dialog appears.

New Prompt Dialog

3. In the Prompt for field, choose the variable type using the drop-down list, and type
the name of the variable.

4. In the Label field, type a label for the variable filter prompt.
You can include HTML markup tags in the field, such as and .

5. In the Description field, type a short description for the prompt.
This description is displayed as tooltip text, shown when the user hovers over the
prompt’s label in the dashboard or analysis.

6. In the User Input field, choose how you want the prompt interface to ask the user
for input.
If you selected the Choice List, Check Boxes, Radio Buttons, or List Box user input
type, specify the list of values for the prompt.

7. In the Options section, select the prompt options to specify how you want the list
values to be displayed to the user, and how you want the user to interact with the
prompt.
The prompt options vary depending on the user input type that you selected.
In the Default selection field, choose the prompt value or values that users see initially.

8. Click the OK button. The prompt appears in the Definition pane.

9. Click the  button (Save Prompt).

Do the following:

a. In the Folders pane, choose a personal or shared folder in which to save the
prompt.
When you save a prompt in one of your personal folders, only you can access
it. When you save it in a shared folder, users with permission to access that
folder can access it too.
Your top-level personal folder is called My Folder. Every user with a unique user
name has a folder called My Folder. This is designed to hold the prompts that
you use most often, and other content that you access frequently.
b. In the Name field, type a name for the prompt.
c. (Optional) In the Description field, type a description for the prompt.
d. Click OK button.

 

Edit a Dashboard Prompt

1. Click the myContents tab, and click Dashboard Prompts in the secondary menu.
The Definition screen appears.

2. Select a prompt, and click the button. A dialog appears.

3. Modify the settings, as required.

4. Click OK button.

5. Click the  button (Save Prompt).

 

Rearrange Dashboard Prompts

1. Click the myContents tab, and click Dashboard Prompts in the secondary menu.
The Definition screen appears.

2. Select a prompt, and use the arrow buttons (to the right of the Definition pane) to
reorder the prompt.
The order of the prompts controls how choices are displayed to users at runtime,
so ensure that the order is logical, especially if you are creating constrained
prompts.

note: In cases when two prompts are defined for the same column, Analytics uses
only the second prompt (ignoring the first prompt).

For example, if you define two prompts for the Incentive Date, such as Incentive
Date > 1/1/2007 AND Incentive Date < 12/31/2014, Analytics ignores the first
prompt and returns all results with Incentive Date < 12/31/2014. In this case, you can use the “between” operator to create a single prompt that defines the appropriate date range.

3. Click the button (Save Prompt).

 

Select Dashboard Prompts

1. Click the myContents tab, and click Dashboard Prompts in the secondary menu. The Definition screen appears.

2. Select the type of layout you want on the prompts page by clicking either the button or the  button in the Definition pane tool bar.

3. In the Definition table, select the checkbox corresponding to the prompt item that you want to display in a new row or column.

4. Click the  button (Save Prompt).

 

Preview a Dashboard Prompt

1. Click the myContents tab, and click Dashboard Prompts in the secondary menu. The Definition screen appears.

2. Do either of the following:

• Expand the Display pane to preview the prompt with sample data.
• Select the prompt that you want to preview, and click the  button. The preview appears in a new window with actual prompt values.

 

Add a Dashboard Prompt to a Dashboard

1. Click the myContents tab, and click Dashboard Prompts in the secondary menu. The Definition screen appears.

2. Create a new dashboard, or open and edit an existing dashboard.

3. In the Catalog pane, locate and drag and drop the dashboard prompt onto a section in the dashboard.
When adding a column object to a dashboard, you can drag and drop the column to display vertically on the dashboard. You can then add dashboard prompts to this column and, at runtime, the dashboard prompts display in a pane on the side of the dashboard.

note: If you do not want a new browser window to open after the user selects prompt values, then click the Properties menu for the section and choose the Drill in Place option.

4. Hover the mouse over the prompt in the page layout area, click the button (Properties), and choose either Scope > Dashboard or Scope > Page in the cascading menu that appears.
If you choose Dashboard, the prompt affects all dashboard pages that contain
the prompt. The prompt value that the user selects for the dashboard level prompt
overrides values for page level dashboard prompts.
If you choose Page, the dashboard prompt affects only the pages to which you
add the prompt.

5. To set the prompt links, hover the mouse over the prompt in the page layout area,
click the button (Properties), and choose Prompt Links using the drop-down
menu. The Prompt Links dialog appears.
Specify whether to display the Edit and Copy links with the prompt at runtime.

6. Click the button (Save) to save the dashboard.

 

Delete a Dashboard Prompt

1. Click the myContents tab, and click Dashboard Prompts in the secondary menu.
The Definition screen appears.

2. Select a prompt, and click the  button.

3. Click the button (Save Prompt).