Adding prompts to a Salesforce connection

When you create an analysis from Salesforce data, you can configure the analysis to let users select what data to load when opening the analysis.

About this task

Adding prompts to the analysis can be very useful as a way to narrow the amount of data that is loaded into Spotfire when the analysis is opened. By adding prompts to certain columns in the analysis, you will let people opening the analysis select which values are of interest to them. For example, some people might find data from a specific geographical region interesting, while others do not. Instead of having to create many analyses with data specific to different regions, one single analysis can be created. Each person will select only the region that is relevant to them.

Note: Prompts cannot be added to Salesforce reports, only to tables.

Before you begin

You must have access to a Salesforce account.

Procedure

Follow the first steps in the help topic Accessing data from Salesforce or edit a Salesforce connection from the data canvas.
In the rightmost part of the Load data from Salesforce dialog, locate and point the mouse at the column of interest.
This is the column from which you want end users to select values when they open the analysis.
Click on the icon next to the column name, .
Select Let end user select values from the pop-over menu.
The pop-over is expanded with more settings.
Select which Input type to use. Read more in the separate section about Input types below.
Optionally, add a description to include in the prompt that will be shown when end users open the analysis.
Repeat steps 2 to 6 for each column that you want others to be able to select values from.
If you have added prompts to more than one column in the same view, you must consider the order in which the prompts will be displayed. Click on the Input order button.
In the pop-over menu that is opened, all the columns with prompts are listed.
Click and drag the columns in the list to the order you want them to be displayed.
Click OK.
The prompts you have added will be displayed in the order you specified in step 8.
For each prompt that is displayed, specify the values you want to load into Spotfire for further analysis.
The selected data from Salesforce is loaded into Spotfire.

Input types

When you configure prompts for a column, you need to decide how to select values from the column.

Use Single selection to only allow selection of one value from the column.
Use Multiple selection to allow selection of more than one value from the column. The person using the connection will be presented with a list showing all the available values in the column. You can also specify how many values should be selected, using the Min and Max fields.
Use Range to allow selection of multiple values between two values. The range option is most suitable for dates and columns containing numerical values. Note that if you use range as input type for categorical values, you must make sure you write good instructions in the Description field.
Use Manual input to let the person using the connection enter any value to include (for string columns or numeric columns). This input type should only be used if all end users know which values are valid for the column, or if applicable values are shown in the description. For boolean values you get to pick a value using radio buttons (True/False) and for date columns you can choose a date from a calendar.

Input order

In this example, three columns have been configured with prompts: ShippingStreet, ShippingCity, and ShippingCountry.

The Input order pop-over shows the following order: ShippingCity, ShippingCountry, ShippingStreet.

A better order would probably be ShippingCountry, ShippingCity, ShippingStreet. That way the user would first specify which shipping countries to load data for. The next prompt would show only cities located in the selected countries. And the last prompt would show streets located in the selected cities. To change the order, click on a column and drag it to the position you prefer.