Esri’s ArcGIS Dashboard applications offer powerful tools for monitoring utility data, and every Organization using ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise has access to them. With the array of customizations allowed within Dashboards, it’s difficult to know if designers are leveraging their full potential. One easy enhancement that can make dashboards more effective and interactive is to incorporate data selector widgets. These widgets provide interactive, flexible views of your data within a dashboard. These selectors enable dynamic customization, helping users gain valuable insights and make better-informed management decisions.
Utilizing Data Selectors
Data selectors are a dashboard element that allow the user to filter data and trigger actions across the entirety of the Dashboard. There are three types of data selectors: Category, Number, and Date, which can be added to the header or the sidebar of the dashboard.
Before configuring selector widgets, designers must first decide where the widget will be placed - the header or sidebar. Once a location for the widget is determined, click the plus button in the top left corner to add elements, and then select the plus on the header or the sidebar. The proceeding drop-down allows designers to select one of the three types of selectors.
Category: Allows filtering of data using a list of features or options from a field.
Number: Allows filtering of data using a fixed number or range.
Date: Allows filtering of data using a defined date or date range.
Regardless of which type of selector is chosen, designers can then configure the design and what specific data that will be utilized by the selector. The next step to setting up a data selector widget is to configure which actions the selector will trigger.
Click the plus sign on the header or side bar and choose from three selector options
Data Selector Actions
Within the widget configuration, the Action tab allows the selection of other Dashboard elements that can be filtered by the selector. Elements available for filtering that reference the same data source chosen for the widget (in the Data tab) will have an icon helping designers quickly recognize the relationship. Within the Actions tab, elements referencing the same data source can be easily toggled on without any further configurations. Other available elements that reference other data sources will require designers to configure field mapping between the two sources. This type of configuration is common when working with data in a related table. For example, a Dashboard may need to show data within a hydrant inspection table that is related to a hydrants point feature class. Designers would select target and source fields in the selector actions and have the selector filter the inspection table by the hydrants feature layer using a shared field. In the photo below, the selector is configured to filter both an indicator displaying the related inspection table and indicators displaying hydrant features. Since the inspection table is not the same data source, their common field for life cycle status must be configured as the source and target field.
In the actions tab of the selector, choose elements you wish to trigger by selecting a source and target field that are shared.
Dashboard Selectors and Water Data Management
Data selectors can be utilized in any dashboard but are especially helpful in Water Operation Dashboards and Dashboards for other types of utilities, where there are large quantities of data. Typically, water utility data includes many robust layers that are connected to each other, and managing all these layers can be difficult. Data selectors allow the users of any level to interact with a dashboard and filter the data they need to see at any given moment. Rather than having to create static elements for this information, selectors make Dashboards more efficient by allowing users to view the data dynamically and quickly monitor data across multiple layers and related tables.