Working With Slicers

Topics:

Slicers provide a quick and easy way to add dynamic user controls to a chart or report, giving you the ability to filter the data in use as you create or view content. Slicers are dynamic filters that can be changed by making a selection from a menu of fields. You can use them to filter your content by modifying a slicer in the Slicers tab and running the chart or report, or you can use them at run time when running a report in InfoMini with the Slicers tab selected.

Creating Slicers

How to:

You can create slicers by dragging fields to the Slicers tab or through the context menu of a field. When you create a slicer group, it appears on the Slicers tab.

You can use slicers to dynamically filter reports at design time.

You can dynamically filter reports at run time when they are included in an InfoMini application. For more information on InfoMini, see Understanding and Building InfoMini Applications.

Procedure: How to Create a Slicer

  1. Click the Slicers tab.
  2. Create a new slicer by using one of the following methods:
    • Click the New Group button to create a new slicer group.

      Select a field from the Data pane and drag it onto the Drag Fields Here to Create Slicers text on the Slicers tab.

      Note: You cannot drag parent-child hierarchies onto the Slicers tab.

      The field is added to the new group.

      or

    • Right-click a field in the Data pane, point to Slicers, and then click New Group.

      The field is added to the new group.

      If you are creating a slicer on a full date field, a calendar icon displays adjacent to the field. You can use this icon to select a date using a calendar control.

Procedure: How to Add a Field to an Existing Slicer Group

  1. Click the Slicers tab.
  2. Add a field to an existing slicer group using one of the following methods:
    • Select a field from the Data pane and drag it onto an existing slicer group.

      or

    • Right-click a field in the Data pane, point to Slicers, and then click Existing Group.

      Select an existing group from the menu, and then click OK.

      The field is added to the existing group.

Procedure: How to Add a Hierarchy as a Slicer Group

Note: You cannot drag parent-child hierarchies onto the Slicers tab.

  1. Click the Slicers tab.
  2. Add a hierarchy as a slicer group using one of the following methods:
    • Select a hierarchy from the Data pane and drag it onto an existing slicer group.

      The hierarchy is added as a new group, not as a slicer in the existing group. The new group is given the same name as the hierarchy.

      or

    • Click the New Group button to create a new slicer group.

      Select a hierarchy from the Data pane and drag it onto the Drag Fields Here to Create Slicers text of the Slicers tab.

      The hierarchy is added to the new group. The name of the new group changes to the name of the hierarchy automatically.

    Note: Hierarchies cannot be added to existing slicer groups. If a hierarchy is dragged onto an existing slicer group, a new group is created automatically.

    There is no right-click context menu for hierarchies. To add a hierarchy as a slicer group, you must drag it into a new slicer group.

Filtering With Slicers

Topics:

How to:

Once you add slicers to an InfoAssist report, you can use them to filter the report. You can select values from the slicers menus, change the number of records that appear, create new slicer groups, clear existing slicer groups, and update the report preview.

Slicers that are not selected have their values filtered by the selected slicers. Only values that meet the criteria for previously selected slicers will appear in the menu for the next slicer. Slicers are not filtered in the order they appear in the slicer group, but by the order they are selected. Cascading of slicers is only valid for hierarchies.

Procedure: How to Change the Relationship Operator in a Slicer

  1. With at least one slicer added to the report, click the Slicers tab.
  2. Click the operators button on the slicer for the operation you want to change.

    A list of operators (numeric) appears in the menu.

    Note: Alpha fields just flip between equal and not equal.

  3. Select the operator that you want from the menu. You can rest the mouse on an operator to display a tooltip describing the operation.

How Slicers Cascade Together

How to:

Slicers cascade within a hierarchy (cube or dimension builder-based), rather than in the order of user interaction, eliminating potential performance issues.

Procedure: How to Cascade Slicers

Controls with fields from the same hierarchy are cascaded together.

  1. Create a report.
  2. Create multiple slicer groups, as described in How to Create a Slicer.

    Note: You can select multiple values by holding down the CTRL key while selecting items in the drop-down list box. In cases where multiple items are selected, the label for the drop-down list is set to Multiple. You can click the drop-down list to review the selections.

    Once you click OK, the new control appears in the drop-down menu.

    The 1 prior to the decimal point indicates that this is the first cascade you have interacted with. The 1 after the decimal point indicates that it is the first control in that cascade.

  3. Filter the report using the controls in the slicer groups that you created.

    Note: The order of a cascade is dynamic. For example, if you selected Camcorder from Product Subcategory first, then the Product Category control would have a value of Video Production.

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