Member and Data Point actions are typically interacted with one item at a time. However, there is also a need to apply the action to multiple items. As such, the ability to select multiple selected items at a time becomes very important.
Note: Certain interactive options may not be available or behave differently if there are multiple items selected.
- Click here for more details.
Selecting Measures and Data Points
Single Selections
When making single selections, you can click or right-click the item to open its context menu and perform an action in a one step. This includes handling for both elements (members) and data points (cells).
Example: Focusing on single Members
For example, if we want to focus the query on the incomes of females, we can right-click a Female member (black arrow below) and select Member Selection > Focus on the context menu:
The effect of this action is to focus on the female income data only:
Note: The context menu offers the option to Eliminate the combination item too. For more information, see Element and Data Point Selection.
The same functionality works in a non-grid visual. For example, we can right-click the 0-1 Miles category item (below) on the X-axis and drive the context menu accordingly:
The effect of this action is to focus on the selected Commute Distance data only:
Alternatively, you can perform this action by right-clicking on the legend items (Partial College):
Example: Eliminating data points
The same effect can be achieved on data points or cells. Right-clicking on the highlighted cell in a grid lets us Focus on or Eliminate the selected data point. In this case, the data point representing Females with a Bachelors Degree, who have a commuting distance of 0-1 Miles:
Similarly, we can right-click on data points represented by columns in a chart (for example). In this case, we are acting on the data point representing Females with Partial High School, who have a commuting distance of 0-1 Miles:
Multiple Selections
Item Picking
You can select multiple members or data points one-at-a-time using "item picking":
- You can hold down the
CTRLkey and click multiple items one-by-one. - You can use the Item Picker tool (opened from the Toolbox) to select multiple items. This tool is useful for picking non-contiguous selections. For more information, see Item Picker in Discover Pro.
Important: When item picking, multi-select applies to either members or data points. If you select one member and then another, the two members are both selected but if you then select a data point, the two members will be deselected and the data point will be only thing selected (it is the first data point selection).
Example: Multi-Select Members using Ctrl+Click
In a grid, holding the CTRL key while clicking allows the user to pick multiple items.
In this example, the Graduate Degree, High School, and Partial High School members are chosen and the action selected from the context menu is performed on all of them (in this example, Focus). The items are highlighted when the members are selected:
- Selected hierarchical items are shown with a blue halo.
- Selected data points are shown with a yellow halo.
Once picked, you can right-click to open the context menu with options that can be used on all three items simultaneously:
Clicking Focus from the right-click menu, focuses on the selected members:
Example: Multi-Select Members using the Item Picker
For users who prefer to skip the use of the CTRL key or are using a tablet (and therefore do not have a keyboard), they can use the Item Picker tool instead.
From the Toolbox:
- Click Item Picker (green arrow below).
Selecting the Item Picker changes your cursor into a "multi-selection" tool, meaning that everything you click from now until you revert to the normal Selector tool (purple arrow above) will be added to your selection as if you were holding the Ctrl key.
Note: The preceding image shows the toolbox for a Layered Map. The Lasso options may differ for different visualization types.
For a Grid:
- Click each member as required. Note that where items appear multiple times in the visual (like Female below), all instances are selected in response to this action.
For a Chart:
- Click each member as required. In the following example this is 1-2 Miles and 10+ Miles (green box), although it could be members in the legend, the genders, or a combination. Note: Selected items in a non-grid visual are highlighted in full color, while non-selected items are washed out.
Once picked, you can right-click to open the context menu with options that can be used on all items simultaneously.
Example: Multi-Select data points
Like member selections, holding the CTRL key while clicking or using the Item Picker tool allows you to pick multiple data points. Again, the selected items are highlighted with the yellow halo. Notice that the hierarchy elements are not selected (blue):
Lasso tools
Depending on the visual and the visible features for the given visualization, you can also use the Lasso tool to select, "focus" on, or even classify contiguous groups of items. For more information, see one of:
Example: Lassoing contiguous data points
To select a contiguous set of data points, you can use the Lasso tool (green arrow below). It turns the mouse into a draggable tool to graphically define and select a region on the visual. Once you release the mouse, the items are selected and ready for your action.
Important: There are two types of lasso tool in Pyramid. This example describes the Select Lasso as it works for a Grid. There is additional functionality associated with the Select Lasso where the visual has a different visualization type. There is also a Zoom Lasso (that zooms in on your selected area) that is available for other visualization types.
From the Toolbox:
- Click Select Lasso (green arrow below).
Your cursor changes into a "multi-selection" tool (compass) allowing you to do one of the following:
- Drag your cursor across the data points to draw a Circle or Rectangle that selects the contained items.
- Draw your own shape "free-hand" on the canvas, selecting any items inside the shape.
Note: Typically, the action associated with your lasso is select. This means that the items inside your selection are selected and you can make use of the right-click context menus available for your given selection.
Multi-Item Operations
The context menu choices presented to users change if multiple items are concurrently selected. The most notable adjustments are:
- The Dice, Swap, and Add Menus are NOT available if multiple items are selected.
- Users can execute Drill Down, Drill Up, Expand, and Collapse operations on multiple selections as long as all the items are from the same hierarchy and the same level.
Example: Multi-Element Drill Down
If the query contains multiple hierarchies, and you want to drill down on a cell (rather than a hierarchy label):
- Right-click on the relevant cell.
- Go to Selected Members in the context menu.
- Choose the required member element from the given data point in the sub-menu.
- Select the drill action from the next sub-menu.
