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Defining Custom Actions

This chapter describes how to define custom actions for use in InterSystems IRIS Business Intelligence dashboards.

Also see “Accessing the Samples Shown in This Book,” in the first chapter.

Introduction

You define custom actions within KPI classes. Then:

  • When you display a given KPI in a widget, you can add controls to that widget that invoke the custom actions. See “Adding Widget Controls” in Creating Dashboards.

  • If you specify a KPI class as the actionClass attribute of the <cube> element, all actions within this class are available to pivot tables that use this cube, which means they can be added as controls to widgets that display these pivot tables.

  • If you specify a KPI class as the actionClass attribute of another <kpi> element, all actions within this class are available to that KPI, in addition to any actions defined within that KPI.

  • You can execute actions from within the Analyzer. Note that in this case, only a subset of the client-side commands are supported: alert, navigate, and newWindow. Other commands are ignored.

For details on defining KPIs, see the Advanced Modeling for InterSystems Business Intelligence.

You can perform many of the same operations with either a standard action or a custom action:

Operation Available As Standard Action? Can Be Performed in Custom Action?
Setting a filter Yes Yes
Setting a filter and refreshing the display Yes Yes
Refreshing the display of a widget Yes Yes
Refreshing the display of the entire dashboard Yes No
Specifying the row or column sort for a pivot table Yes No
Specifying the row or column count for a pivot table Yes No
Displaying a listing for a pivot table Yes No
Displaying another dashboard Yes Yes
Displaying a URL in the same page Yes Yes
Displaying a URL in a new page No Yes
Executing code on the server No Yes
Changing the data source of the widget Yes No
Changing the row or column specification of the widget Yes No

For details on the standard actions, see “Adding Widget Controls” in Creating Dashboards.

Context Information

The system makes context information available to actions, by two different mechanisms. When a user launches a custom action, the system writes context information into the pContext variable, which is available in your custom code on the server. When a custom action opens a URL, the system replaces the $$$VALUELIST and $$$CURRVALUE tokens, if these are included in the URL. The following figure illustrates these mechanisms:

When an action is launched, the pContext variable is set, and the $$$VALUELIST and $$$CURRVALUE tokens are replaced.

Defining the Behavior of Actions

To define custom actions, you must both declare the actions and define their behavior.

Declaring Actions

To declare actions, do either or both of the following tasks in a KPI class:

  • Within the <kpi> element, include one <action> element for each action.

    This element specifies the name of an action available within this KPI class; the user interfaces use this information to create lists of available actions for the users. For example:

    <kpi xmlns="http://www.intersystems.com/deepsee/kpi"
 name="Holefoods Actions">

<action name="ActionA"/>
<action name="ActionB"/>
<action name="ActionC"/>
</kpi>

    For information on <action>, see the appendix “Reference Information for KPI and Plug-in Classes” in Advanced Modeling for InterSystems Business Intelligence.

  • Override the %OnGetActionList() callback method of your KPI class. This method has the following signature:

    ClassMethod %OnGetActionList(ByRef pActions As %List, pDataSourceName As %String = "") As %Status

    Where pActions is an array with the following nodes:

    Node Value
    pActions Number of actions
    pActions(n) Details for the nth action. This is a $LISTBUILD list that consists of the following items:
    • A string that equals the logical action name
    • A string that equals the corresponding display name

    And pDataSourceName is for future use.

    For example:

    ClassMethod %OnGetActionList(ByRef pActions As %List, pDataSourceName As %String = "") As %Status
{
    set newaction=$LB("New Action","New Action Display Name")
    set pActions($I(pFilters))=newaction
    quit $$$OK
}

Defining the Behavior of the Actions

To define the behavior of the actions, override the %OnDashboardAction() callback method of your KPI class. This method has the following signature:

classmethod %OnDashboardAction(pAction As %String, pContext As %ZEN.proxyObject) as %Status

The system executes this callback when a user invokes an action on a dashboard. pAction is the logical name of the action. pContext is an object that contains information about the currently selected scorecard row and that provides a way for the method to return commands to the dashboard; the next sections give the details.

A simple example is as follows:

ClassMethod %OnDashboardAction(pAction As %String, pContext As %ZEN.proxyObject) As %Status
{
 Set sc = $$$OK
 Try {
      If (pAction = "Action 1") {
              //this part defines Action 1
              //perform server-side actions
          }
         Elseif (pAction="Action 2")
         {
                //this part defines Action 2
                //perform other server-side actions
                 }
        }
        Catch(ex) {
                Set sc = ex.AsStatus()
        }
 Quit sc
}

This method defines two actions, Action 1 and Action 2.

Note:

Because %OnDashboardAction() is a class method, you do not have access to %seriesNames or other properties of the KPI class from within this method (no class instance is available from the method).

Available Context Information

An action can use context information — values from the dashboard, based on the row or rows that the user selected before launching the action. These values are useful if you want to cause changes in the database that are dependent on context.

Because %OnDashboardAction() is a class method, you do not have access to %seriesNames or other properties of the KPI class from within this method. Instead, the system provides the pContext variable, which is an object whose properties provide information for use in the action. The details are different in the following scenarios:

Scenario: Pivot Table Widget with Pivot Table as Data Source

In this scenario, within the %OnDashboardAction() method, the pContext variable has the following properties:

Property Name Property Contents
currValue Value of first selected cell
currSeriesNo Column number
currItemNo Row number
currFilterSpec MDX %FILTER clause or clauses that represent the filtering applied to the current cell context. This includes values of any filter controls, as well as the row and column context.
valueList Null
cubeName Name of the cube queried by this pivot table
mdx MDX query defined by this pivot table
pivotVariables A proxy object that contains one property for each pivot variable. Specifically, pContext.pivotVariables.varname contains the value of the pivot variable varname. In this proxy object, all pivot variable names are in lowercase. For example, if the server defines a pivot variable named MyVar, this pivot variable is available as pContext.pivotVariables.myvar
filters An array that indicates the current values of all filter controls. For each node in this array, the subscript is the name of a filter defined by the KPI. The value of the node is the corresponding key or keys, in the form described at “Allowed Default Values for Filters”.
dataSource Name of the current data source

Scenario: Pivot Table Widget with Listing as Data Source

In this scenario, within the %OnDashboardAction() method, the pContext variable has the following properties:

Property Name Property Contents
currValue Value of the first selected cell that was displayed before the listing was shown
currSeriesNo Column number of the first selected cell that was displayed before the listing was shown
valueList Comma-separated list of values from the first column of the listing (these values must not contain commas)
pivotVariables A proxy object that contains one property for each pivot variable. Specifically, pContext.pivotVariables.varname contains the value of the pivot variable varname. In this proxy object, all pivot variable names are in lowercase. For example, if the server defines a pivot variable named MyVar, this pivot variable is available as pContext.pivotVariables.myvar
filters An array that indicates the current values of all filter controls. For each node in this array, the subscript is the name of a filter defined by the KPI. The value of the node is the corresponding key or keys, in the form described at “Allowed Default Values for Filters”.
dataSource Name of the current data source

Scenario: Pivot Table Widget with KPI as Data Source

In this scenario, within the %OnDashboardAction() method, the pContext variable has the following properties:

Property Name Property Contents
currValue Value of first selected cell
currSeriesNo Column number of first selected cell
valueList Null
pivotVariables A proxy object that contains one property for each pivot variable. Specifically, pContext.pivotVariables.varname contains the value of the pivot variable varname. In this proxy object, all pivot variable names are in lowercase. For example, if the server defines a pivot variable named MyVar, this pivot variable is available as pContext.pivotVariables.myvar
filters An array that indicates the current values of all filter controls. For each node in this array, the subscript is the name of a filter defined by the KPI. The value of the node is the corresponding key or keys, in the form described at “Allowed Default Values for Filters”.
dataSource Name of the current data source

Scenario: Scorecard with KPI as Data Source

In this scenario, within the %OnDashboardAction() method, the pContext variable has the following properties:

Property Name Property Contents
currValue Value of the KPI property that is marked as Value Column in this scorecard
currSeriesNo Row number
valueList Value of the KPI property that is marked as Value Column in this scorecard
pivotVariables A proxy object that contains one property for each pivot variable. Specifically, pContext.pivotVariables.varname contains the value of the pivot variable varname. In this proxy object, all pivot variable names are in lowercase. For example, if the server defines a pivot variable named MyVar, this pivot variable is available as pContext.pivotVariables.myvar
filters An array that indicates the current values of all filter controls. For each node in this array, the subscript is the name of a filter defined by the KPI. The value of the node is the corresponding key or keys, in the form described at “Allowed Default Values for Filters”.
dataSource Name of the current data source

Executing Client-Side Commands

An action can contain commands to execute when the control returns to the dashboard. To include such commands, set the pContext.command property within the definition of the action. For example:

        //this part defines Action 1
        //perform server-side actions
        //on returning, refresh the widget that is using this KPI 
        Set pContext.command="refresh;"

For pContext.command, specify a string of the following form to execute a single command:

command1

For pContext.command, specify a semicolon-delimited list of commands:

command1;command2;command3;...;

The final semicolon is optional.

Some commands accept one or more arguments. For these, use command:arg1:arg2:... instead of command.

Available Commands

Within pContext.command, you can use the following commands:

alert
alert:message

Displays the message in a dialog box. message is the message to display

For example:

 Set pContext.command = "alert:hello world!"
applyFilter
applyFilter:target:filterSpec

For information on the arguments, see “Details for applyFilter and setFilter.”

This command sets the given filter and refreshes the browser window.

For example, the following applies a filter to a pivot table:

 Set pContext.command = "applyFilter:samplepivot:[DateOfSale].[Actual].[YearSold]:&[2008]"
navigate
navigate:url

Where url is the URL to display.

This command opens the given URL in the same browser window.

For example:

 Set pContext.command = "navigate:http://www.google.com"
newWindow
newWindow:url

Where url is the URL to display.

This command opens the given URL in a new browser window.

For example:

 Set pContext.command = "newWindow:http://www.google.com"
popup
popup:popupurl

Where popupurl is the relative URL of a popup window.

This command displays the given popup window. For example:

 Set pContext.command = "popup:%ZEN.Dialog.fileSelect.cls"
refresh
refresh:widgetname

Where widgetname is the optional name of a widget to refresh; if you omit this argument, the command refreshes the widget from which the user launched the action.

This refreshes the browser window, using any current settings for filters.

For example:

 // Refresh the widget that fired this action and another named samplepivot.
 Set pContext.command = "refresh;refresh:samplepivot"

Note that this example includes multiple commands, separated by a semicolon.

setFilter
setFilter:target:filterSpec

For information on the arguments, see “Details for applyFilter and setFilter.”

This command sets the given filter, but does not refresh the browser window.

Details for applyFilter and setFilter

The applyFilter and setFilter commands are as follows, respectively:

applyFilter:target:filterSpec

And:

setFilter:target:filterSpec

Where:

  • target is the widget to filter. You can use an asterisk (*) to apply the filter to all widgets.

  • filterSpec specifies the filter value or values to apply to the given target. This must have the following form:

    filter_name:filter_values

    Where the arguments depend upon the details of the target widget as follows:

    Scenario filter_name filter_values
    Target widget displays a pivot table [dimension].[hierarchy].[level] See “Allowed Default Values for Filters” in the chapter “Configuring Settings.”
    Target widget displays a KPI Name of a filter defined in that KPI One of the allowed values for this filter, as defined in the KPI

    Notes:

    • You can use multiple filter specifications; to do so, separate them with a tilde (~). For example:

      FILTER:filterspec1~filterspec2

    • The filter name and filter values are not case-sensitive for pivot tables or for KPIs that use MDX queries.

    • The filter can affect only widgets that have been configured with a filter control (possibly hidden) that uses the same filter. For example, suppose that a widget includes a Cities filter control, and has no other filter controls. If the action filters to a city, the widget is updated. If the action filters to a ZIP code, the widget is not updated.

Displaying a Different Dashboard

In your custom action, you can use navigate or newWindow to display a different dashboard. Use the dashboard URL as described in the chapter “Accessing Dashboards from Your Application.” The URL can include the SETTINGS keyword, which initializes the state of the dashboard.

Generating a SQL Table from Cube Context

In your custom action, you can use the %CreateTable API to create a SQL table from cube context. The table may be created from either:

  1. A field list

  2. The name of a listing defined in the cube, either as a field list or a custom SQL query.

See the class reference for more details.

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