Configuring Cascading Scopes
Given there can be multiple Scopes defined for a single data view, it is common that these Scopes are based on related data. For example, a data view may include scopes for normalized Publishers, Products, and Product Versions. Since all reference normalized software data, these Scopes can be configured to "cascade" so that so that selection of values for one Scope can affect what is displayed in the option drop-down of another Scope. This example is more clearly shown in the following screen shots, as well as directions on how to define this Scope behavior.
Cascading Scopes Example
The following few screen shots gives a visual understanding of how cascading Scopes behave and how they can be used for more efficient report building.
In this example, a data view is based on the installation summary report. Since this report relies of installed software package signatures to exist, then there is access to the normalized Publisher, Product, and Product Version. Cascading scopes allows the user to select the Publisher Scope first in order to narrow down subsequent Product and Product Version options. In this case, Apple Inc. has been selected:
Once the Publisher is selected, the options available in the Products drop-down is filtered to include only applications that are related to Apple Inc.
From here, if Safari is selected, then the Product Versions drop-down is limited only to versions of Safari only.
As Safari is selected, the Product Versions drop-down is limited only to version of Safari only.
And finally, as the desired version of Safari is selected, the report can return with just the information selected in the Scopes.
Cascading scopes makes the process of selecting information in each related Scope becomes more efficient, therefore reducing the number of items of interest quickly across several Scopes.
How to configure cascading Scopes
Continuing on the previous example, the following steps will show how to create cascading Scopes for Products and Product Versions, based on the Publisher, in a custom version of the Install Summary data view. These instructions are following an example using a custom data view, so only directly apply here.
Edit Scopes in the Data view structure
- Open the desired data view by navigating to Admin >> Data View Management section in Asset Vision (refer to Data View Management in the Asset Vision Help for more information on working with data views). In the case of our example, we are using a custom data view called Cascading Scopes Demo - Install Summary, which was selected in the Data Views tree on the left-hand side.
- In the Structure view of the selected data view, click the Edit Structure button. This will load the Data view structure dialog.
- Click the Scopes tab.
Select the Products Scope
1. Click the Edit button (pencil icon) for the Products Scope.
2. In the Edit Scope dialog, click the Reference Config button.
In the Edit Scope Reference Attributes dialog:
3. Select a Products Data View that contains the Publisher reference Data View.
4. Add a Criteria that matches the Publisher reference from the Product Data View with the Publisher Scope in this Data View.
To ensure that cascading occurs, the Data View selected must contain a reference column to the data being scoped.
In this case the Product Data View needed to reference Publisher table in drive the cascading filtering based on the selected option in the Publisher Scope.
The same is then repeated for the Product Versions, in which the Product is referenced in the filter options:
After all of these are configured, click Save on each of the dialogs to save the Scope settings.
For this preceding example, the Scopes used were in a direct hierarchy Publishers Products Product Versions. However, what is most important for cascading scopes is that the Data View used in the reference configuration must only have a reference to the data in the other Scope. For example, the Products Scope could be eliminated from this cascade as long as the Product Versions Data View contained a reference to the Publisher. Then, selection of the Publisher would cascade to the Product Versions Scope instead.