Self-Service templates

Self-Service provides a package of templates from which you can create reports. The steps required by the templates vary, but in all templates you select a database and database cube. In some templates, you also select elements from one or more dimensions. For example, to create a bar chart, you specify which elements form the category and measure axes. Some templates also provide options to specify the appearance of the report.

The templates include an element picker. You can use this to filter values in other reports. For example, place a chart displaying sales by region and the element picker on your dashboard. Configure the element picker to display elements from the Region dimension. Selecting different regions in the element picker changes the data displayed by the chart. This communication between the chart widget and the element picker is handled automatically but can be configured.

Each report created from a template has a settings icon to display report options. The options vary by report but include, for example, options to change the report filters. Tabular reports, in which one dimension forms the rows and another forms the columns, also have options on the column dimension. These include selecting which elements form the columns, and suppressing zero values.