Increasing Flexibility via Prompts

Overview

Prompts are one way to provide runtime values to the execution pipeline. Qarbine provides a Prompt Designer to easily create dialogs without any coding. Applications can also pass runtime values to Qarbine when it is used in an embedded fashion. The variables defined in the prompt may be referenced by data sources and report templates. This allows greater flexibility for your data retrieval queries and report templates. Shown below is the execution flow when there is a Prompt component.

  

We’re going to add some flexibility to our data source query and analysis template by prompting for a movie year.

Walkthrough Steps

Opening the Prompt Designer

The Prompt Designer can be accessed in several ways including

1. from the sign on page

  

1. from another tool’s upper left menu.

  

. . .

  

Available Prompt Widgets

Initially the prompt has no user input elements.

  

A standard Prompt contains one or more prompt elements with each corresponding to a dialog widget. A large variety of widgets is available as shown in the table below.

	Entry field		Date
	Hidden entry field		Time
	Text area		Date and time (timestamp)
	Checkbox		Date range
	Slider		Timestamp range
	Drop down		Heading
	List- single or multiselect		Label
	Radio box set		Horizontal line
	Geographic location and radius		File prompt
	Color

These widgets are listed along the vertical palette. Selecting one provides information about its usage. Double clicking adds that type of widget to the elements list. They can be reordered by dragging them up and down in the list.

Setting the Prompt Elements

For our movie prompt a simple slider widget will suffice.
Add a main heading by double clicking   .

Select the heading element in the list

  

In the detail area adjust the default values from

  

To

  

Tab out of the label entry field. To apply the changes click

  

The far right area is updated.

  

Next, add a slider widget by double clicking   .

The prompt elements list looks like the following.

  

The right hand side preview area shows the following.

  

Select the slider widget prompt element.

  

Adjust the default values from

  

To

  

Set the variable name as shown below

  

Adjust the slider settings as shown below

  

Tab out of the entry field. To apply the changes click

  

The preview area is updated as shown below.

  

Testing the Prompt

To test the prompt click

  

The following dialog is shown.

  

Click

  

The results of the prompt are shown in the Results tab.

  

Activate the Design tab by clicking

  

The prompt element list now shows

  

Saving the Prompt

Save the Prompt by clicking

  

In the catalog prompt navigate to the desired folder.

  

Enter a name

  

Your components can include longer descriptions and tags as well to better convey their purpose and group them in an ad hoc manner independent of their catalog folder location. Users can search the catalog by keywords and tags.

Click

  

Referencing the Prompt

You now have a prompt to obtain a year from the user. Previously we defined a Data Source to obtain the top 25 movies for the year 2014. We can change that hard coded value to use the value obtained from the user via our Prompt component.

Opening the Data Source Designer

This tool can be accessed in several ways including:

1. from the sign on page

  

1. from another tool’s upper left menu.

  

. . .

  

Using the Prompt Output Variable

A convenient way to open your previously designed Data Source is by clicking on the recent icon as highlighted below.

  

Select the component

  

Click

  

The query definition is shown below.

  

Edit the hard coded “2014” with “@year” as shown below.

  

To associate it with the Prompt click

  

The properties dialog appears.

  

Click the Prompt tab.

  

Choose

  

Click

  

Choose

  

Click

  

The properties dialog is updated.

  

Click

  

Click

  

The dialog is presented.

  

Specify a year value.
Click

  

The effective query is run and the results shown.

  

Save the Adjusted Data Source

Save the Prompt by clicking

  

Template Ripple Effect

Our previously designed template references the updated data source which now has a prompt reference. Let’s see how that change ripples across components. The Template Designer can be accessed in several ways including:

1. from the sign on page

  

1. from another tool’s upper left menu.

  

. . .

  

A convenient way to open your previously designed Template is by clicking on the recent icon as highlighted below.

  

Select the component

  

Click

  

Click

  

You are presented with the prompt.

  

Specify a year value.
Click

  

The year value propagates into the referencedData Source which obtains the main data to iterate over. The result for the year 2010 is shown below.

  

Note that the template itself was not changed. It “inherited” the updates to the referenced data source. This inheritance can be very useful by allowing database query experts to optimize their data source queries over time and the referencing templates immediately gain the benefits.

Next Steps

There are many other features of the Prompt Designer discussed in its own document.

For now, return to the “1) Qarbine Sandbox Bucket List” document to continue the quick tour.