Dashboards and Widgets Creation Guide - MicroStrategy

Dashboards and Widgets Creation Guide Document Review 1
For more examples and instructions to create and format widgets, see
Chapter 5, Providing Flash Analysis and Interactivity: Widgets.
Each of these different kinds of controls is referred to as a control type.
Dragging and dropping a dataset object onto the Layout area of the
Document Editor creates a control. If the dragged object is a dataset report, a
Grid/Graph is created; otherwise, a text field containing the dataset object is
added to the Layout area. When the document is displayed as a PDF, the
Grid/Graph is displayed like a MicroStrategy report; the text field displays
the elements or values of the dataset object.
The document section in which a control is placed determines not only the
location of the values but also whether it is repeated and at what level it is
calculated. For example, some document sections, such as the Page Header
or Page Footer, are appropriate for displaying page numbers because those
sections are automatically repeated throughout the document. For a
summary of the different document sections, see Document sections and
metric calculations, page 17.
A metric placed in different document sections is calculated differently. In
the Detail section, the metric is calculated at the level of the attribute
element, while the same metric placed in the Group Header section is
calculated at the level of the group. This is described as an overview in
Document sections and metric calculations, page 17.
After you add controls, you can move and arrange them to determine how
they appear when the document is viewed as a PDF. For instructions and
examples of the various ways in which you can move and arrange controls,
see the Document Creation Guide.
Document sections and metric calculations
A document contains multiple document sections, although most
dashboards use only one document section. Using only one allows you to
easily design a dashboard using the whole screen. For example, if you create
a new document using the Blank Dashboard template, only the Detail
Header is displayed.
The document section that you place a control in determines where the
control is displayed on the document. For a metric, the level of calculation
depends on its location in the document, as summarized below. This allows
you to create metric totals in documents, such as a grand total or a group
total. When a metric is placed in a document section other than the Detail
© 2012 MicroStrategy, Inc. Designing and creating documents: An overview 17