InetSoft Product Information: Using a Visualization Dashboard

Let’s address the following task: “I want to see which clients in Colorado made purchases in the time period from January 2002 to January 2003.”

1. Deselect all states, except for Colorado (CO). (Use the scroll bar on the right side of the Selection List, if necessary). The table now shows the results for Colorado.

“Ok, but we want to see only January 2002 through January 2003?” Let’s change the time period:

2. Hover the cursor over the right side (or left side) of the Range Slider bar until a two-sided arrow will appear.

3. Hold down the mouse button and drag the right edge of the bar to the left. Shrink the bar until the date listed is ‘2002 January – 2003 January’, and release the mouse.

The table automatically updates to display the new data selection. Use the scroll bar on the right edge of the table to scroll through the data. “The data is all there, but I want to see it sorted according to the name of the company, rather than by the date of purchase.” Let’s change the sorting column:

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4. Hover the mouse over the right side of the ‘Company’ header cell in the table. The ‘Sort Column’ button appears in the header cell.

5. Click the ‘Sort Column’ button once to sort the column in ascending order (indicated by an up-arrow). The table is now alphabetically sorted by company name.

“Now, I want to see the purchases for January 2004 through January 2005.” Let’s shift the date range:

6. Place the cursor in the center of the Range Slider bar, hold down the left mouse button, and drag the slider bar until the date selected is ‘2004 January – 2005 January’.

The table is immediately refreshed with data only for the range you selected. “Fine, but who was our best customer in the first quarter of 2004?” Let’s see the results for all states over this three month period:

7. In the Selection List, select all of the states:

a. Click the ‘Clear Selection’ button to remove the existing filter.

b. Click the ‘Reverse Selection’ button to select all of the states.

8. On the Range Slider, drag the right edge of the slider bar until it is wide enough that only ‘2004 January – 2004 March’ is displayed.

9. To sort the table according to total purchases, hover over the right side of the ‘Total’ header cell in the table. Click the ‘Sort Column’ button twice to sort the results in descending order.

“I want to show this data to my colleagues at the meeting later.”

10. Click the ‘Export’ button in the top toolbar to open the ‘Export’ dialog box. The dialog box provides two tabs, Content and Location, that allow you to choose export options for your export.

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