Widget communication

You can connect widgets so that a change in one widget, such as a change of date or country, is reflected in the connected widgets.

Variables in Infor BI Application Studio can be marked as parameters. In dashboards these parameters can be combined into parameter connections to control the way in which widgets communicate.

Report variables

Reports with lookups are linked if they are from the same content connection, their lookup names are the same, and one of these conditions applies:

Their lookup values are the same
One or more of their parameters is in the format LookupHierarchy.DefaultMember

Reports without lookups are linked if their parameter names and types are the same, and one of these conditions applies:

Their parameter values are the same
One or more of their parameters is in the format LookupHierarchy.DefaultMember

Note: Report variables must be of either Element or Tuple type.

WebView widget parameters

WebView widgets can also have parameters. You can link WebViews to report widgets and to other WebViews on a dashboard by creating parameters from parts of their URLs.

See: Creating and editing WebView widget parameters

Parameter connections

The parameters of multiple widgets can form a parameter connection. For example, if two or more widgets have Location and Month parameters, there are two possible parameter connections. You could add some or all widgets to either, or both connections. For example, to link widgets by location, add the location parameter of each widget to the Location parameter connection.

By default, links between report widgets are detected automatically and the parameter connections are created. You can turn off auto-detection and create and edit connections manually.

You can specify whether values that are not used in a parameter connection are stored in the dashboard or set by the widget.

See: Creating parameter connections.

Note: Connections between report widgets and WebViews are not automatically detected and must be created manually.

The leading widget

By default, when you save a dashboard, the values of the parameter connections are saved with it. Those values are selected each time you open the dashboard and are unaffected by changes to the source report in the report catalog. But sometimes you want changes in the source report to affect the dashboard values: for example if the source report is configured to update daily.

You can use a leading widget to specify that the values of the parameter connections are not stored in the dashboard. Select the leading widget for the connection from the Initial Value list. The value of a leading widget drives the value of the connection. Other widgets in the connection are loaded with this value.

Note: A WebView cannot be the leading widget of a parameter connection.

If the leading widget is removed from a dashboard, the initial value automatically reverts to 'stored in dashboard'.