New to the Spotfire 3.1 platform is the ability to add Property Controls to Text Areas.  These easy-to-configure controls allow an application builder to effectively ‘guide’ the consumer to perform more meaningful analyses, like the ability to change visualization axes through the Web Player, perform ‘what-if’ analysis and pass inputs to Spotfire Statistical Services functions & On-Demand Data Loading. Available Property Controls include drop-down lists, list boxes, sliders , labels and text input fields. Configuration of these controls is UI-driven, without the need for any programming skills.

The process for creating a user input-drive analytic application is (in pretty much any order):

1. Define a Document, Data Table or Column Property
   • There are shortcuts to performing this step in either step 2 or 3 below, otherwise it can be performed in the Data Table Properties, Column Properties or Column Properties dialog boxes under the Edit menu.
   • Scope the variable as either being a document, data table, or column property.
   • Properties have a name, description, data type, and default value.
2. Reference the Property in a Custom Expression
   • The Custom Expression dialog box has been updated in 3.1 to provide for Properties to be inserted into expressions.
   • The context menu (usually right-click) of the properties list allows you to add new properties.
   • Replace any valid text in an expression with the contents of a property selecting the text to be replaced and the property and then pressing Insert Properties.
   • See what will be passed to the data engine by looking in the textbox below the “resulting expression” label.
3. Configure a Property Control in a Text Area to assign its value(s) to a Property
   • Add a Text Area visualization to a page and a Property Control to the Text Area.
   • Pick a control type.
   • Assign its output value to an existing Document, Data Table or Column Property (or create a new one).
   • Where appropriate, configure where the valid input values come from (list of columns, values, fixed list, numeric range).

The following movie gives you a quick step-by-step overview of how you would author an user input-driven analytic application that allows an end user to switch the column that is used for the axis of a visualization: