Hi,

On the Analytics tab of PMF there is an option in View that offers "Visual Discovery - Outlier Finder". When we select this option, the loaded measures and dimensions are presented along with time range options. However, when we make selections from these drop downs, none of the visual discovery panels appear to locate the data. I am hoping someone can advise how to get the visual discovery graphics to display.

There are several possible reasons why you might not see data. Let's start with the dumb ones first and then move up from there.

First do you have a licensed version of visual discovery? VisDis requires a license.
Second, have you installed the license file on the server as documented (it is in the WebFOCUS VisDis documentation).

OK, if those are out of the way...

Try clicking the Trace box and see if you can see data. Note there was a bug in Trace in early 4.2.1 which requires a patch from CSS. Do you see a grid of numbers when you have Trace turned on and click Discover? What URL is being listed... the URL is the one configured in A_HOSTNAME.FEX in the PMFDATA folder. Is it the right URL?

If you need further help I recommend a call to CSS. This forum isn't the ideal place to solve deeper support issues.

Yes, we have a licensed version of visual discovery using the thick client. The license file is on the server in the approot folder called visdis according to the documentation. Visual Discovery is working fine outside of PMF, but we were looking forward to the embedded visdis graphics offered in PMF.

By the way, can you describe where the trace box is located?

Trace is a check box located on the far right of the VisDis ribbon at the top of the displayed Outlier Finder page.

Yes I checked the trace box and clicked Discover, but the screen did not change and within moments the dashboard closes.

I'll take your advice and contact CSS.

Thanks for your prompt responses.

Yes; Visual Discovery does crash the browser if it is not getting data.

I believe tracing - which is the only way to diagnose the problem - has a problem in 4.2.1. You can upgrade to 4.2.1a to fix this, or at minimum take a patch to two files in the mainstreet application to get tracing working. It won't fix the problem but it will give you and the engineer the ability to see what the problem is.

The files that have the issue are:

pmf_visdis_ui.htm
pmf_visdis_page01.fex

You could get these files sent to you by CSS from the current 4.2.1a version of PMF without breaking anything.
The problem is that the variable trace needed to be renamed to vd_trace because TRACE became a protected variable name - used for another purpose. So we had to rename it.