Insights Studio Widget Interactivity

Creating Effective Interactive Workflows

Interactive Insights work best when designed as guided analysis workflows. There are no requirements, but it can be helpful to follow a top-down-left-right structure. In that layout, the interactivity begins in the top left widget and cascades data from left to right, then from top to down. That structure can make the interactions clearer.

Recommended Workflow Structure

  1. Entry Point: Start with a table or chart showing an overview (e.g., Top Applications, Top Client Locations, etc.).
  2. Selection Layer: Select specific items for detailed analysis.
  3. Detail Views: Configure downstream widgets to show filtered details.
  4. Drill-down Options: Provide additional analysis paths for deeper investigation.

Setting Up Basic Widget Interactions

To create an interactive dashboard, you need to configure both the source widget (that passes data) and the target widget (that receives filtered data). The basic steps for each are the same, but you will change what widgets you place in each configuration option. For instance, for the Source Widget, you can configure it so that widget interactions are passed through Group. However, for the Target Widget, all widget interactions are passed through Time.

Note: You can configure either the Source Widget or Target Widget first.

Configure Widget Interactions

  1. Click the ellipses menu (...) of the widget you want to configure.

  2. Select Configure.

  3. In the widget properties, navigate to the Interactions menu.

  4. There are three configuration options: Group, MetricClosed A measurement or data point that is monitored and analyzed to detect anomalies and generate incidents., and Time. In the configuration that you wish to create interactions for, click the text box. A list of available widgets to select appears.

  5. Select the widgets that you wish to pass data to. You must select at least one widget for the interactivity to function, but you can select as many widgets as desired.

  6. If the widget is a target widget and you do not want it to show data until you click a row in the source widget is clicked, select Enable Only show interaction data.

  7. Click Submit.

Setting Up Multiple Widget Interactions

While basic interactions involve two widgets exchanging data, you can create more complex workflows with multiple widgets. These interactions follow a hierarchical structure where data flows from one widget to the next in a chain.

For example, you might configure Widget 1 to send group data to Widget 2, which then sends time data to Widget 3. In that scenario, Widget 1 and Widget 3 do not directly communicate, but Widget 3 receives filtered data that originated from Widget 1's selections, creating a multi-step analysis workflow.

Advanced Interaction Features

Beyond basic filtering, Insights Studio supports advanced interaction patterns:

Multi-level Interactions

  • Chain multiple widgets in sequence for complex analysis paths.
  • Use composition widgets to show breakdowns of selected data.
  • Configure correlation widgets to show relationships between selected entities.

Time-based Interactions

  • Drag across time series charts to select time ranges.
  • All widgets sharing the same time context update automatically.
  • Use time selections to focus analysis on specific periods.

For example, if you see a spike in a time chart and you want other widgets to calculate their metrics only for that spike then pass a time interaction from the time widget to any widgets where you want the metrics only calculated for the spike time region.