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Reset is a built-in functionality provided in SAP Dashboards. The standard functionality is achieved by simply adding the Reset button which user can click to return the dashboard to its original state and reset the changes performed by user. This is typically used in dashboards with What-If-Analysis controls. There are situations though when the functionality needs customization.
(Fig. 1)
I have received requests for few projects where it is needed to reset the dashboard to its almost initial state, but not all the way back to the exact original state – basically just one or two steps ahead of the originally loaded state. For example,
1) A dashboard has several filters with default value as null/no selection when loaded and based on user selection it renders data on a map. The requirement is to allow them to reset it to the no selection state after changing the value and analyzing a few scenarios. This is easily achievable with a standard Reset button.
However, when the dashboard loads at the beginning, it shows a custom message to the user with an OK button to click.
The functionality desired was returning the dashboard filters to its original state but not show the custom message which would appear if I use a Reset button. Hence a standard Reset button will not work and customization is required.
2) A dashboard has a dropdown with list of facilities and what-if-analysis control designed with sliders and text components. The dashboard initially defaults to ‘All Facilities’ in the dropdown. After making changes to the sliders and performing the analysis, user wants to reset the slider values; which can be obtained with a Reset button. But clicking on the standard reset button would take it back to default state where the dropdown defaults to ‘All Facilities’. But, the user wants the ability to reset the sliders only for the selected facility without having to re-select the facility from the dropdown.
In this post, I am going to share an idea to get around the limitation of the Reset button and customize it to a different point in state. I will elaborate using the first example.
Following is the custom message which appears as soon as the dashboard loads and after clicking OK it shows the filters with no value selected. The goal is to select values from the filters and then click ‘Clear’ button to go back to original default values.
(Fig. 2, 3 4)
Following are the steps I followed in place of using an out-of-the-box Reset Button:
1. I used Combo Box component for the filters and the labels are bound to the corresponding values as shown. The list has NULL as the first value. For Account combobox: $F$7:$F$9
(Fig. 5)
2. I added Label and Position insertion type to capture both. The destination for Label is $F$4. The destination for Position is $F$3.
(Fig. 6)
3. The default selection is bound to position at $F$3 as well and $F$3 is set to 1
(Fig. 7)
4. The setup is done same way for all the other combo boxes with Zone set to G3, Territory set to H3, State to I3 and so on.
(Fig. 8)
5. In the run time, a user selects different values from the list of values, position value at $F$3:$K$3 (highlighted in yellow) will also change accordingly, as shown below in (Fig. 9).
( Fig. 9)
6. To reset to No Selection for all the filters I need to change $F$3:$K$3 (highlighted in yellow) back to 1 which is the position for null value (No Selection) for all the combo boxes.
7. To achieve this, I used a Push Button component as the Clear button which will move value 1 to the above mentioned range $F$3:$K$3. This being the default selection items for the comboboxes (Fig 7), they will go back to its original state.
8. I hardcoded $F$1:$K$1 with 1 ( highlighted in gray and made sure no other component or developer changes them) and setup the Push Button with its Source Data property to $F$1:$K$1
9. The Destination of the Push Button is setup to $F$3:$K$3 which is, as mentioned before, the default selected item cells for the combo boxes.
(Fig. 10)
So at any point whatever are the values for $F$3:$K$3 if user clicks the Push Button (called ‘Clear’ in the example dashboard), they will be cleared from users changes and set to 1 and hence the filters will be reset to No selection hence its original state.
(Fig. 11)
Since, the rest of the dashboard visualization and data movement is dependent on the selection of the filters; they are also reset to their original state as intended.
This makes sure the very initial custom message is not repeated but users can reset the rest of the dashboards as they want.
There are many more tricks like the above to customize the standard functionalities of Xcelsius and provide rich user experience. Also, there may be more complex scenario than this but can be addressed with the same approach. For more tricks like above, follow this space and the training offerings which deliver numerous methods to meet such custom requirements.
Please share your feedback and similar scenarios you may have come across!
