Create a cover page

Create a cover page for your document and explain the purpose of the analysis on this page. Tell the recipients what kind of data is included in the analysis, and the possible results to look for. When you save the analysis file, before sharing it with your colleagues, make sure the cover page is active so that the analysis file will open showing that page first.

Write instructions in text areas

You might want several pages in your document. For example, the first page might show a map chart of the United States covering the overall sales results. The second page might have a bar chart comparing the sales and expenses in different states. The third page might show sales figures for each individual salesperson.

It is often good if each page includes some text where you explain what the page shows and its purpose. Give the reader some instructions on which filters are relevant to modify, and perhaps mention that they can mark interesting items in the visualization and see more information about those items in the Details-on-Demand window or in a details visualization. For example, on the second page with the bar chart comparing states' sales and expenses - you could ask the recipients to select the radio button that filters down to the state they work in.

The use of property controls in the text area can also be a great help when creating analyses for other people. Just remember to add instructions regarding any constrictions for the control and inform about the purpose of the control using regular text.

Place links or buttons to relevant tools or views in the text areas

In some cases, it might be relevant for the recipients to perform an action; to filter out values, to go to another page, to apply a bookmark or to open a panel from the menu bar, and so on. Instead of writing a long instruction, you can create a link or a button in the text area that performs this action when clicked. The instruction you do write in the text area can be simpler, like "When you have marked the items of interest, click here to filter to filter out all other items from the visualization." Links and buttons are a very powerful way to allow even casual users of Spotfire to perform analysis of data in a fast and easy manner.

Links or buttons can also include bookmarks that show a specific view of the data, and thereby helps explaining the steps that have led to a particular conclusion. Using custom properties to define the visualizations, and property controls that allow the end users to easily change the property values can further simplify the analysis procedure for many people.

Use step-by-step or navigate using action controls

When you want to emphasize that the recipients of your analysis file should step through the pages in a certain order, you should change the page navigation from titled tabs to step-by-step navigation. This means that the pages will instead be shown as numeric links, together with a Previous and Next link, in the page navigation area. The recipient of the analysis file will then start on the cover page, if you have selected to show it, or on the first real page. By clicking Next, you will step through each page in order, performing the analysis described in the text areas along the way.

This can be very powerful because, by default, the filtering done on one page affects all other pages as well. You can therefore create a flow where the first page allows the recipients to filter out unwanted data by looking at one visualization. Then, they can proceed to the next page where they continue to drill down into the data, filtering out more unwanted rows using another visualization, and so on.

Using action controls in text areas and in graphical tables and KPI charts (authored using the installed client), you can define your own navigation flow. This way, clicking an action item directly on the pages is the way to move forward within the analysis. When you use this type of navigation, it might be beneficial to select Page Navigation > Off (that completely switches off other navigation modes) or Page Navigation > History Arrows (that allows return to previously visited pages).

Use customized filtering schemes

By default, the filter settings are the same for every page in the document, and they will stay the same until you start changing the filtering schemes. The filtering schemes give you complete control and complete freedom to decide which pages of your guided analysis should affect one another and which should not. You can keep the same filtering scheme for all pages, create a different one for each page, or assign the same filtering scheme to two or more pages.

Applying different filtering schemes can be useful if your guided analysis consists of several separate analyses originating from the same data table. When two pages use the same filtering scheme, the filtering performed on one page is carried over to the second page and vice versa. If they use different filtering schemes, the filtering on each page only affects that very page.

For example, you can create one page where State is the only activated filter, permitting the recipients to click through and compare sales for the states without being bothered with any other filters. (If you want to, you can also use organize filters (in the installed client) to hide all unused filters.) On the next page, you can apply a different filtering scheme relevant to another analysis of the sales data, and so on.

Keep in mind the intended end users' level of data access

Always make sure the end users of your guided analysis have access to the same data sources as you do. Permissions to analyses and information links are handled using the Library Administration tool (in the installed client), or directly from the Spotfire Server Library web page, in an on-premises environment, but you might also need to consider access to databases when using data connections. See also Preparing analyses for Spotfire web clients. You can also consider adding prompt steps that could limit the available data for each end user when you are adding the data.