Selections, Bookmarks and Hierarchy Groups (Enterprise only)

Vizlib Teamwork lets you make Selections to zone in on areas and data, keeping your conversations and comments preserved within their original context (Figure 1).

This topic contains the following sections:

Selections

Figure 1: Teamwork Selections

You can preserve the context of your selection by tying them to shareable Bookmarks and Hierarchy Groups. This feature saves the application selections, which can be shared with other users. There is a tiny selection icon indicating what selection state is associated with the comment. If other users click on the icon or on your comment, your selections will be reapplied on their dashboards. It allows them to easily understand what data you were looking at while making your comments.

Selection Icon

The Selection Icon (Figure 2) indicates current selections that will be associated with the added comment.

Figure 2: Selection Icon

The icon becomes visible when the add comment input is focused, and if you hover on it you'll see a tooltip with more details (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Selection Icon Tooltip

You can see the full range of selection icon options in Table 1.

Table 1: Selection Icon Options

Option Description

No selections. There are no selections associated with the comment.

Hierarchy group. There are selections in fields that are defined in one or more Hierarchy groups.

Bookmark without hierarchy group selections. There are selections in fields that are not defined in the Hierarchy groups properties and no selections in hierarchy groups fields.

Bookmark with hierarchy group selections. There are selections in fields that are not defined in the Hierarchy groups properties and selections in hierarchy groups fields.

Selection Icon Tooltip

The selections icon tooltip (Figure 4) displays information about selections associated with a comment. The bookmark icon indicates if a bookmark was created with the comment. The hierarchy group values display the fields and values selected when the comment was created.

Figure 4: Tooltip Icon

Shareable Bookmarks

Shareable bookmarks let you share your current selection with another user via Qlik Sense bookmarks (Figure 5). No custom security rules are needed, and you can tie your comments to a selection context.

Bookmarks are created when there are selections in fields that are not defined in a hierarchy group. If Hierarchy groups are disabled, a bookmark is created for all comments added with a selection.

Comments added with no selections will not create a bookmark.

Note: Shareable bookmarks are only available in Vizlib Teamwork Enterprise. Find more information about it here.

Figure 5: Shareable Bookmarks

Note: If the application is protected with Section Access, the user INTERAL\sa_repository needs to be added as ADMIN in Section Access for shareable bookmarks to work. If you return an error using Section Access, please consult our Troubleshooting guide here.

Hierarchy Groups

Hierarchy Groups allows you to associate selections to comments. When Hierarchy Groups is enabled and configured, the only comments visible on the list will be comments matching selected and possible values in the app’s current selection state for each hierarchy group. Only one value in one field per hierarchy group can be associated with a comment.

Note: To use hierarchy groups will need to select Secure Hierarchy Groups in the stream settings in the VMC under Teamwork Settings > Streams (Figure 6). You can also find the HierarchyAccess property value in Custom Properties.

Figure 6: Secure Hierarchy in VMC

You'll also need to enable Hierarchy groups in the property panel under Selections to set up the hierarchy and rules (Figure 7).

Typically, you would add a time dimension hierarchy (such as Year/Month/Day) and one or more other hierarchies that are related to your data. This is different to bookmarks as bookmarks store all selected values, and hierarchy groups store only one or zero values in each hierarchy group.

Figure 7: Hierarchy Groups

Hierarchy Group Mode

Hierarchy group configuration rules are controlled by the Hierarchy Group Mode setting (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Hierarchy Group Mode

There are three levels, with Active or lower level set as the default:

  • All related filters the visible comments to only comments associated with the possible and selected values in all the fields defined in the Hierarchy group.

    e.g. 2014 in Year, 2014-Jan in YearMonth and all 2014 values in Date.

    Note: If there are any excluded values in any of the hierarchy group levels fields, comments associated with no selections will not be visible.

  • Active level filters the visible comments to only comments associated with the possible and selected values in the field of the active level.

    2014-Jan in YearMonth.

    Note: Active level is the default lowest level in a hierarchy group that has selections in the specified field.

  • Active or lower level filters the visible comments to only comments associated with the possible and selected values in the field of the active level or the levels below.

    e.g. 2014-Jan in YearMonth and all 2014 January values in Date.

Hierarchy Groups Mode (Figure 9) is also available in the right-click context menu. Changing this setting through the context menu only changes it during the active session.

Figure 9: Hierarchy Groups Mode

It will revert to the setting configured in the property panel next time the object is reloaded (Figure 10).

Figure 10: Hierarchy Groups Mode

Adding Hierarchy Groups

It is recommended that you use fields with a fewer number of values, because the number of fields and field values impact query performance. If the query gets too complex comments will not be fetched. Number of values in hierarchy group field are limited to the first 100 values. Design your hierarchy groups wisely. Especially the top fields in each hierarchy group if required selections is disabled, because comments made with no selections in hierarchy group will be associated with the top field. Updating hierarchy groups will most likely filter out some/all older comments associated with previous hierarchy groups that do not get a match in the updated configuration.

To add a hierarchy group, go to Period Hierarchy in the property panel.

  • Click Add Period Hierarchy (Figure 11) to start.

Figure 11: Add Period Hierarchy

  • Click <Select a value> to view the drop-down (Figure 12), and choose a hierarchy group level field, e.g. Year.

Figure 12: Select a Value

Period Hierarchy should typically include the most used time fields. Any number of levels can be used in the hierarchy but make sure each one is an aggregate of the next (Figure 13) e.g. For Year, YearMonth is the next hierarchy level.

Figure 13: Period Hierarchy

For Hierarchy Groups A-C (Figure 14), you can use any fields you choose. Common options are geographical, organisational or product group related fields. Again, make sure the dimensions within each hierarchy are an aggregate of the level below (e.g. Division Name, Region Name).

Figure 14: Hierarchy Group A, B, C

Require Selections

If you enable Require selections (Figure 15), it means you'll have to include a selected value in one of the fields defined in the hierarchy group.

Figure 15: Require Selections

If a hierarchy group has Require selections disabled, you can add comments without selections in the fields defined in the hierarchy group. These comments will be associated with the top field in the hierarchy group with no value.