Actions

In its default configuration, the information a dashboard displays changes only when the underlying data refreshes. To provide a more interactive experience, you can configure actions in your dashboards. Actions allow you to give your dashboards a more focused context.

Actions are initiated by events, and there are three types of supported events: URL parameter change, map extent change, and selection change. The dashboard and many of its elements support different events (and some elements do not support any events). The following table lists the event sources and the events that are supported from that source. Note that the event sources include selectors. These are dashboard elements that can further enhance the interactive capabilities of a dashboard. See Selectors for details.

Event source	URL parameter change	Map extent change	Selection change
Dashboard	Y
Map		Y
Operational layer from a map			Y
List			Y
Serial chart			Y
Pie chart			Y
Category selector			Y
Number selector			Y
Date selector			Y

Tip:

• Always assign dashboard elements a unique and meaningful name on the General tab. This is helpful when configuring actions.
• Finish adding elements and make visual refinements to a dashboard before configuring actions.

Using actions

The action source describes where the event initiates while the action target is where the event occurs. The following types of actions are supported:

• Filter—Reduces the number of features available to the target element or operational layer when it's rendering
• Set extent—Sets the extent of a target map element
• Flash location—Flashes a geographic location on a target map element
• Zoom—Causes a target map element to zoom to a specified location
• Pan—Causes a target map element to pan so a specified location is centered
• Show pop-up—Displays an information window on a target map element

Some filter actions can be configured to require a selection before rendering an element. You can enable Render only when filtered as part of configuring a filter action to add focus and context to a target element. When enabled, the target element doesn't render the target visualization until a selection is made on the source. The message displayed on an element that requires a selection can be configured in the target element's general settings.

The following table summarizes what can be the source of actions and what can be targets. Some dashboard elements, such as a map legend and rich text, can be neither the source nor the target of an action and are not listed here.

Dashboard element	Action source	Action target
Dashboard	Y
Map	Y	Y
Map's operational layer	Y	Y
Serial chart	Y	Y
Pie chart	Y	Y
Indicator		Y
Gauge		Y
List	Y	Y
Details		Y
Embedded Content		Y
Category selector	Y	Y
Number selector	Y	Y
Date selector	Y

Note:

The Show pop-up action is only available on an element when it's configured to show features and its data source represents an operational layer from a map already added to the dashboard. When configuring Show pop-up, its target is automatically selected to be the map the element's data source is from. For more information, see Configure actions on dashboard elements and Configure actions on URL parameters.

Considerations for using actions

Actions have a source and a target. An action's source can be the dashboard or one of its elements. An action's target is always one of the dashboard's elements. If the source and target are based on different data sources, the relationship between these sources must be established. This can be either an attribute relationship or a spatial relationship. In an attribute relationship, a field or value from the source element is used to match field values of the target element. In a spatial relationship, feature geometries from the source element are used to intersect geometries of the target element.

Note:

If the source and target are based on the same data source, you don't need to take any steps to establish their relationship.