Day 22: In Dashboard Navigation

Sometimes just putting tabs in a dashboard doesn't quite make it easy enough to navigate.  When your users need to go sheet to sheet, it's time add in in-dashboard navigation.

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This is going to be a good one to follow our post on Click Button Filters on Day 20 as we're basically just creating another button, and using it as a filter - just filtering to a different dashboard through a dashboard action.

So here's what we're going to do.  We're going to create a button that goes back forth between the dashboards we made on Day 21 and Day 20.  Just like on Day 20, we're going to create a sheet with a button.  This time it's going to be a shape.  You ready?  Here we go.

New sheet.  The data can be anything as we're not really using any real data fields.  We're going to throw "One" (=1) on the Columns shelf and change it to a dimension.  We're going to change the mark types to shapes, head over to the Arrows folder, and pick one (I like the one in the shape of a circle pointing to the left, but that's just me).  Make it bigger so you can actually see it.  You should  be looking something like this:

Right click on the axis and edit.  Change it to a fixed range from 0 to 5, and then right click and uncheck show header.  Now, also bring "One" one to Label.  Once you have something on the Label Shelf you can click it and hit the ellipses ( the ...), delete what's there and type in what you want the back button to say.  I'm going with "Click here to go back".  Looking like this:

While we're taking care of look and feel, click on Tooltip, clear out the text that's there by default and rewrite the same text as your label.  Also uncheck the box on the bottom left.  

Ok, now bring this sheet in to your dashboard(s) (I find that floating is the easiest way to do this), typically in to the top left.  Here's where the trick comes in.  Select that back button sheet, and go to dashboard actions>>Add Actions>>Filter.  Check only the Back Button sheet on the source sheet, and CHANGE THE TARGET SHEET to the dashboard you want to go to.  This is important - set your Target Filter to Selected Fields (and don't add in a field).  Make the action run on Select and it should all look like this:

Test it out by clicking on the arrow (if it's already selected, you have to click it to deselect, and click it again select and run the action.  

Do the same thing in the other sheet, and now you'll be able to to go back and forth without needing to go to the tabs.  Check it out below:

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That's it.  See you tomorrow.
Nelson