Using the Dial View

Adding typical 'dashboard' gauge-type displays and alerts

Dial View allows you to create three different kinds of interactive dashboards. Provides familiar representation of relative magnitude of values drived from specific columns in the data set. This makes it easier for end users to view the results at a glance. Dial view itself is highly customisable. For example, you can specify the maximum/minimum range, create coloured zones etc.

Please note that dial alerts, range and zones settings are set for each individual value field. For example, if you set your dial alerts, ranges and zones and then switch your value field to something different than your settings will disappear. However, when you change your value field back to a field that previously had alerts, range or zones set, then the Dial view will restore them.

View Toolbar

Dial View toolbar has generic options just like other views such as View changer, Subset, Aggregate and the View tools.

Dial View toolbar also contains options and settings which are specific to the view itself. These are described below.

View Tools

The view tools is available in all other views and contains general options which are available in other views, but also options specific to Dial View.

Toolbar - Style options

Style option allows you to choose between three different type of dial styles. This list may increase in the future versions.

Meter style displays the values in meter type representation.   Half-moon style displays the values in a semi-circle.   Speedometer style displays the values in a circle representation.

Toolbar - Range settings

The range settings allows you to specify the minimum and maximum values for the dial. Once you have specified the range values the dial view will use that that to show represent the values. If the value falls outside the range of the dial, then warning text is shown.

Automatic range: When this option is ticked, the values for the minimum and maximum are automatically calculated by the view. These values will be determined by the underlying data being displayed.   Minimum value on dial and Maximum value on dial: These two options only become enabled when Automatic range is unticked. These allow you to specify your own minimum and maximum value settings. This can be helpful when you want to limit the values of the dial to a certain range.

Toolbar - Alerts settings

Dial view allows you to set your own alerts when certain conditions are met. For example, if you are monitoring sales target, you could have an alert that tells you once 50% of the the items are sold provide some kind of visual notification. You can also use the multiple alerts functionality of the dial view to add further alerts. However, dial view will only show the text of the first alert that has been met. For example, continuing from the previous example, if you have an alert set at 50% and another at 70%, but if the sales have gone beyond 70%, then the dial view show the alert for 50% and not for 70%. Having said that you can from the alerts dialog change this precedence. When no alert condition have been met, but there are alerts set then dial view shows a white triangle on the edge of the dial to indicate where these alerts have been set. Below is a description of how you can add alerts to your Dial View.

Adding and editing alerts

When you click on the Alerts button you are presented with the following dialog. The edit alerts dialog allows you to add new alerts, edit existing alerts, remove alerts or change the precedence of the alerts.

When you click on either Add or Edit  buttons in the Edit alerts dialog you are presented with the Add/Edit Alerts dialog an example of which is shown and described below.

Toolbar - Zones Settings

The zones settings allow you to set zones to sub-divide the values into different sections. Each of the sub-sections can be assigned a coloured zone and a label. This can be very useful when you have lots of values, and the values can be seperated into groups i.e Low, Medium and High. Below is a description of how you can add zones to your Dial View.

Adding and editing zones

When you click on the Zones button in the View toolbar you are presented with the following dialog. From this dialog you can add, edit, remove and change precendence of the zones. This is useful when you have two or more zones are overlapping each other, as just like with alerts the earlier zones take precedence.

Add...: Allows you to add a new zone to your dial. Edit selected...: Allows you to edit a selected zone. Remove selected: Allows you to remove a selected zone. Up and Down: Allow you to change the precedence of the zones.

When you click Add... or Edit selected... buttons in the Edit zones dialog you are shown the following dialog which allows you to configure the zones.

Minimum value: Represents the minimum value of the zone. Minimum is inclusive: If ticked, means the minimum value is included in the zone. Maximum value: Represents the maximum value of the zone. Maximum is inclusive: If ticked, means that that maximum value is included in the zone. Color: Allows you to specify a colour for the zone. In order to specify the colour you first need to tick the Specify text box. Once you tick the box a colour button will appear next to it from which you can choose the colour. Label: Allows you to specify text to label the zone. This text is shown within the zone in the dial. Please note that this is not supported by all dial styles.

Toolbar - Value field

The value field drop down which is also present in some other views allows you to specify what values to show within the view. By default this is set to Number of records. However, you can easily change this to a particular field. Depending on the type of field you select, a Function:  menu will appear, allowing you to chose whether to display the sum, the mean, or some other transformation of the data. If you choose a function such as mean, a Weight:  menu will  allowing you to specify another field to calculate weighted averages of the values. Below is an example of the Value field menu.