Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 1 Choose Your Own Adventure! Dynamic Grouping and...

Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 1

Choose Your Own Adventure!Dynamic Grouping and Recursive Drill-downs

Travis HettenbachKoch Mineral Services, LLC

June 4, 2008


Anyone used to read the CYOA Books?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure“After an introduction to the story, the reader is asked to

determine the protagonist's next course of action. For instance, the first decision offered in The Cave of Time is: If you decide to start back home, turn to page 4. If you decide to wait, turn to page 5.

After the reader makes a choice, the plot branches out and unfolds, leading to more decisions and eventually multiple possible endings.”

So, now it’s time for you to choose! Would you like to hear the rest of this presentation? If you decide to hear the presentation, clap to continue. If you decide you don’t want to hear the presentation, boo

now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure


Choose Your Own Adventure?

Users desire a way to group their reports on-the-fly.Give them various ways to group the same dataPowerful analyticsMake it easy to use


Demo car_group_1.fex, car_group_2.fex, car_group_3.fex

Benefits Simple to code & easy to understand Straightforward usability

Disadvantages Strict & hard-coded drill-path Multiple fexes to maintain Lack of flexibility may lead to frequent code-changes

How would a basic grouping example look?


So how can we alleviate the disadvantages?

Problem: Strict & hard-coded drill-path Solution: Dynamic drill-path (of course)

Problem: Multiple fexes to maintain Solution: A single fex (obviously)

BUT HOW?!


Dynamic BYs, WHEREs

Make a dynamic drill path using amper variables


Recursive drill-downs

Maintain only one fex by using recursive drill-downs and give the user their drill “options” using DRILLMENUITEM


Demo

recursiv.fex


Pros/Cons

Advantages Single fex to maintain Very dynamic drill-path Powerful Analytics Intuitive to use

Disadvantages Limits on multi-drill Complex coding Difficult to maintain Potentially more coding


Some other enhancements…

Give the user a way to select their grouping levels DropDown Listbox Demo Dual Listbox Demo Real-world Demo


Questions?

Feel free to email me. Example files available upon request (or see attachments at the end of this presentation).

Travis Hettenbach Koch Mineral Services, LLC Development Manager [email protected] Focal Point – Trav

mailto:[email protected]


Attachments

summit_2008.zip

Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 1 Choose Your Own Adventure! Dynamic Grouping and...

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