Configuring Map Options for the Advanced Form Search Control
When working with maps in the SAS Law Enforcement Intelligence solution, being able to adjust the starting point can make a big difference in drilling down results quickly. That's where Map Filter configurations come in. In this post, you will learn about the configuration and flexibility in how data shows up on the map without being locked into the default settings defined in the overall SAS Investigation Content Pack properties. Even if the solution has global settings in place these map filter options enable you to override them for a particular advanced form search so you can focus on desired results.
The advanced form search control has a map filter configuration button that enables you to configure how map searches work and how the map is displayed to users in the advanced form search control.
In this instance, as the administrator, I am in the administrator interface and have already created the control (on the homepage), selected the entity to search against (Information Report), and defined the search form fields (offense category and Date event occurred).
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Now it's time to configure the map options for the control.
For this, I go to control’s properties panel. In the Map Options section, I click the Map Filter Configuration button.
With the Define Map Configuration window open, let’s look at the options we can configure. In the Display Options section, I select the Display the map check box so the map will be displayed to users in the search control.
For Area Options, I select the Enable area search check box to enable users to perform a map search to find relevant objects. The default area is where I specify a default area users will start from in their map searches. This area is configured by an administrator in Areas under the solution’s Properties menu.
For Radius Options, I enable radius search so users can perform a search within a specific radius. I can further configure how these searches work. I want to select Miles as the unit of distance. I set the Default slider radius spinner to 10, to specify the default value for the search radius. The user could change the radius manually by entering a new value or using the slider. Here I set the Maximum slider radius to 100 to specify the maximum allowable value of 100 miles for the search radius. And lastly for the Radius Options, I specify default latitude and longitude coordinates to be applied as the starting point of a search. This will be the starting point shown on the map before selections are made. As a side note, in the system for an object to appear to a user on a map the object must have a latitude and longitude coordinate associated with it.
Last of the configuration is Map Lookup Options. For this option, I can enable the map lookup functionality when users are searching. If I leave it blank, the map lookup is not available; however, selecting the API plug-in enables users to perform map lookups in this control. There are plug-ins that are included with SAS Investigation Content Pack, or an administrator can write their own. When a plug-in is selected, the administrator must select a component type to display to the user. The two types are hyperlink and inline. Hyperlink provides a link the user can click on to display the Map Lookup window. The Inline option provides a field for users to enter their search into the text box, and the map lookup is performed automatically based on the information they enter. Users can select from the returned results, which are displayed as a drop-down list, or they can choose to open the Map Lookup window to refine their search. Lastly, I specify which fields are displayed to the user in the Map Lookup window. In this example, the fields selected were Street, City, State, and Postal Code.
These SAS Law Enforcement Intelligence map options in the Advanced Form Search Control give administrators flexibility to create useful default searches. With the right configuration in place, users can easily see the information and modify search parameters as needed to quickly get to what matters most.
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