SAS Visual Analytics Pop-up Pages
In previous versions of SAS Visual Analytics, Pop-up Pages were referred to as Info Windows. In this older article: Include Info Windows in your SAS Visual Analytics reports and YouTube: Info Windows: Enhance Interaction in Your SAS Visual Analytics Reports I talk about tips for creating Info Windows with previous software releases.
In this article, I will show you ways to use the improved Pop-up Pages and give you additional report design and report building techniques. For additional details about SAS Visual Analytics Pages see SAS Documentation.
What is a Pop-up Page?
A Pop-up Page is a type of SAS Visual Analytics report page than can only be viewed when a source Object links to the Pop-up Page. It is referred to as a “pop-up” because the page “pops-up” in front of the open VA report and does not take up the full screen size. In fact, the smallest the Pop-up Page can be is 25% of the window's width and height and the largest is 75% of the width and height. The report viewer can adjust the size of the Pop-up Page once it’s open.
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Pop-up Page Advantages
There are many advantages to using Pop-up Pages in your SAS Visual Analytics reports.
- Single click access to additional or supporting detail.
- Link to and display more information or supporting detail without navigating way from the main report.
- If data source is the same, selected values pass and filter automatically. If the data source is different, you can define a global Map Data. See this article for additional information on how to define data source mapping: SAS VA: Automatic Actions Part 1 – Easy exploration for multiple data sources
- Pop-up Page is a fully functional report page that can include Page Prompts, Actions, and External URL Links.
First Example
Here is an example where the source Object is a Text Object with a Page Link to the Pop-up Page named Maintenance Details.
Here is what the Maintenance Details page looks like. Notice from the Options pane that the Page type is Pop-up. You can also see that there are five total pages in this report, but only the first Dashboard page is a Basic type.
And here is the configuration for the Page link to the Pop-up Page Maintenance Details from the Text Object.
How to configure the link to a Pop-up Page
Here are the key points to remember when configuring a link to a Pop-up Page:
- There must be a source Basic Page and source Object that supports Page Links.
- Use the Action pane to define a Page Link to the Pop-up Page. In the list of available Page Links there is no indication of the types of pages. You can confirm the target Page is of type Pop-up on the actual page itself by using the Options pane.
- If the Pop-up Page has Page Prompts, decide if you want Set prompt bar values of target page or not.
For more information on Page Links see the SAS Documentation: Create a Manual Link to a Page.
In this example, I have selected the Line Chart as the source Object. Using the Actions pane I have configured a Page Link to Revenue by Week.
Here we can see that the Revenue by Week is configured as a Pop-up Page.
This is how the Pop-up Page looks when there are three months selected in the source Object. I have also selected three weeks in the Pop-up Page which is configured with a Linked Selection to the Crosstab below.
Tips for designing the Pop-up Pages
Tip: Use Page Prompts to easily design the Pop-up Page
Generally, the Pop-up Page will be used because you want the report viewer to see additional detail about the data from the object that was selected. This means that, typically, you will be assuming that values will be passed to the Pop-up Page and applied as filters.
To easily design the Pop-up Page, add Page Prompts for the expected incoming filters. That way you can apply those values as filters to be able to design and customize the Pop-up Page without the extra data values that will get filtered out and it will be more like how the viewer will see the Pop-up Page.
One of the improvements to these new Pop-up Pages is that you can keep Page Prompts in the design to surface to your report viewer. If you keep the Page Prompts expanded, the viewer can collapse the Page Prompts and must right-click on the Pop-up Window name to expand Page Prompts. This might take some explanation as there is no overflow menu visible on the Pop-up Window. But if you don’t need your users to select a Page Prompt value, then after you’ve finished designing the page, you can remove those Control Objects or collapse the Page Prompt area.
Here are two examples of how using the Page Prompts can make the design of the Pop-up Page easier.
In this example, until I selected a value for the Product Drop-down List I didn’t realize that I wanted to add the data label segments to the stacked bar chart.
And in this selection for Product I realized that I wanted to create a Display Rule for the colors in the Product Description to match to the colors in the Bar Chart. So be sure to select different values that you expect to be passed to the Pop-up Page so that your design is encompassing all possibilities.
Tip: Use Page Prompts drill into detail
The support for Page Prompts on Pop-up Pages is one of the major enhancements for Pop-up Pages. This is great when you want to not only pass the selected values from the source Object but also when you want to dive into greater detail.
In this example, the Bar Chart is the source Object and I’ve selected the West value when I double-click.
This Page link is configured to the Region Details Pop-up Page and the option to Set prompt bar values of target page is enabled.
With the Set prompt bar values of target page enabled, we can see that the selected value West is selected in the Region Button Bar as this is the value passed from the source Object.
The values in the Report Prompts are also sent to the Pop-up Page and therefore the values 2011 and Game have also been applied as filters to the Pop-up Page and it’s Objects.
Then the viewer can select additional Page Prompt values which will be applied to the page objects as designed. There is a Drop-down List for Product and a Text Input Control for a custom partial search for Product Description. For more information on how to configure the custom partial search, see this VA Report Example: Use Text Input for custom search: Article or YouTube.
Summary and Demo
There are just some of the ways you can use Pop-up Pages to enhance your VA reports. Below is a recorded demonstration so that you can see how you can navigate through this report.
Check out the below articles for additional SAS Visual Analytics examples:
- Previous SAS Visual Analytics versions: Include Info Windows in your SAS Visual Analytics reports: Article | YouTube
- SAS VA: Automatic Actions Part 1 – Easy exploration for multiple data sources: Article | YouTube
- VA Report Example: Use Text Input for custom search: Article | YouTube
- Use a List Control as a Visual Analytics Report or Page/Section Prompt
- New control prompt placement option in SAS Visual Analytics
- SAS VA: Use Custom Categories to create user-defined categories for dates, measures, or categories
- SAS Visual Analytics 8.1: Configuring prompts with different source data: Article | YouTube
- Tips for working with multiple data sources in SAS Visual Analytics: Article | YouTube
Find more articles from SAS Global Enablement and Learning here.
