Actions: Supercharged Interactivity

Actions allow you almost unlimited flexibility in the interactivity of your visualization. They can be turned on in any view by clicking the drop down and selecting “Use as Filter” (below), or through the Actions dialogue box (Edit->Actions).

The following viz has actions that allow you to dive into the cost of the 2009 Federal Stimulus bill by state, city and individual project:

Use Actions in the following scenarios:

• When it would be more intuitive to find the thing that you want to filter to in a view rather than a list (e.g., a map is better for filtering states than a list).
• When users will want to filter to values that group together in a view (e.g., regions of geographies, outliers, etc.)
• When you want to create a “details-on-demand” situation, where one view filters to a view below it that contains detailed information on the selection.
• When you have a large data set that would overwhelm one view.

As you can imagine, this capability allows you to do some seriously cool stuff. There is no way to explain all of it, but explore what you can do with each viz. When defining a custom action, you need to specify the following:

• Source Sheets – what view will you activate the action from?
• Run Action On – how will you activate the action (e.g., hover, select, or right-click menu)?
• Target Sheets – what sheets will be affected by the action?
• Clearing the Selection – what do you want to happen when you clear the selection?