Dropdown

Inforiver provides options to create single-select or multi-select lists on your own, use one of the preset options or create from your Power BI datasets.

Dropdowns - overview

The single-select and multi-select columns have two main differences:

1. The obvious one is that a single-select column accepts only one option as input whereas, the multi-select column doesn't have that restriction.

2. There are presets available for creating a list of values in the case of the single-select column whereas the same is not available for multi-select columns.

In this section, we'll cover single-select columns. The same steps can be followed for multi-select except for the two points mentioned above.

If you are using Inforiver Enterprise, you need to sign in to start inserting a dropdown column.

Click on the 'Single Select' option in the dropdown.

Data Input type - Single Select

Some of the properties such as Insert as Visual measure/column and Allow input are covered in earlier sections.

1. Creating a list of values

There are two ways to create a list of values (LOVs) in Inforiver Reporting Matrix. The third option - Semantic model - which is greyed out is available only in Inforiver Writeback Matrix and is covered in the next section.

Creating a list of values

a) List

On clicking 'List', three default options along with colors are displayed. You can rename the options as required and click Create to create a new list with three options.

New list created with three options

b) Presets

On clicking 'Presets', a pop-up screen opens. The list of values for each preset can be seen on hover. Select the required preset and Click Apply.

Using a preset list of values

The list of values that gets created is shown below.

List of values from presets

c) Text columns(For Inforiver Writeback Matrix only)

Inforiver allows you to source dropdown values from text data input columns belonging to a different visual. The visual ID is required to reference a different visual. You can obtain the visual ID from the profile as shown in the image below.

Text data input column in a different visual

Follow the steps below to reference the values from one visual in another visual:

STEP 1: Copy the visual ID from visual 1 (Regional Sales).

STEP 2: Create a single-select or multi-select dropdown field in visual 2 (Product Sales).

STEP 3: In the Advanced section of the single select in visual 2 (Product Sales), enter the visual ID from step 1. Once the visual ID is entered, you will be able to select the text column(Region Entity) from the Column dropdown under the Advanced section.

Select text column from another visual

Notice how the values in the single select are being populated from the Regional Sales visual.

Region values are sourced from the Regional Sales visual

2. Editing the LOVs

Changes to data input columns can be achieved using the 'Manage' option in the toolbar.

Manage inserted data input column

The data input side panel opens up. You can make the changes as desired.

Editing properties

Editing the options

The names, order, and color of the options can be modified and they can be added or deleted as well. To edit the names, type over the existing names in the text boxes.

Editing the names

Adding new options

To create a new option, click on the 'Add option'. Type the name in the text box and click 'Enter'. The option gets created as shown below.

Add an option

Enter the name

Option created

Changing the color associated with each option

To change the color, click on the color dropdown. A color picker opens. Choose a color as desired.

Changing the color

To reorder or delete options, use the highlighted icons.

Reordering or deleting options

Icon position

This option allows you to hide or display the icon in the options to the left or right of data.

Icon position in the options

3. Allow user to add new option

Enabling this option allows users to create new options dynamically while using the dropdown, without the need to open the side panel for adding options.

Allow user to add new option

4. Entry in total/subtotal rows

By default, data can be entered in total/subtotal rows. To disable it, uncheck the checkbox highlighted in the below image.

Disabling input in total/subtotal rows

On trying to select an option in the total/subtotal row, a message as shown in the image is displayed.

Entry disabled in total/subtotal rows

5. Default Value

After creating a dropdown column, the user has to enter the values manually as explained in the next section. Instead of having these cells blank, you can display a default value. The default value can be a static value as configured by the user or can be selected from any native measure (Dimension). If the underlying native measure is updated, the default value will reflect the latest value.

Default Value is a static value

Default Value is set from a dimension

6. Using the dropdown

Once the necessary changes are made to the list of values, and other properties are configured, click 'Create' in the data input side panel. Click on a cell in the data input column to enable the dropdown and choose an option.

Selecting from the dropdown

7. Dynamically adding missing options

Users can create a new option on the fly if a particular option is not available in LOV. In the example below, the available values are ‘Submitted’, ‘In Review’, and ‘Approved’.

Available options in the LOV

To add a new value of ‘Rejected’, type the new value in the search bar and click on the ‘Create’ button.

To allow users to input custom options, the Allow user to add new option should be enabled in the Single-Select/Multi-Select configuration.

Adding a new value to a LOV

The new value gets added to the list.

New value added to the LOV

In the next section, we'll cover other data input types such as text, checkbox, and date.