BusinessObjects Board

Many roads to get there ...

building reports desktopintelligence
#1

Hi All,

I’m new to the B.O. world and hope someone can help me out. We need to create some reports where the format will not change, but the query’s “where” clause could. I’d like to allow the users to select data in a variety of ways … customer no, customer name, invoice no, data of invoice, etc…but regardless of the way they select the data, I want the reports to be formatted the same way.

Is this possible?

Thanks,
Anne

Anne Furtado (BOB member since 2002-09-23)

#2

Welcome to BOB!
I am new (well 2 weeks old) too. Looks like everybody who is new has the similar questions.

I think I can give you a hint. Once you run a report, you can save it as a template and next time you can simply create another report using this template.

I would love to hear other comments on this.

Nick (BOB member since 2002-10-13)

#3

The good news is that the format of the report can be kept constant with changes to the “where clause”.

(There is no bad news :lol: )

Who will change this clause? End-users or developers? Not that it makes much difference. Either party can select objects in report development to make conditions from. In addition to this the universe designer can build filter objects which are pre-packaged “where clauses” for commonly occuring conditions. These are built by selecting the yellow funnel shaped icon at the bottom left of the Objects panel in Designer.
In the Reporter module the user selects these objects by clicking on the yellow funnel shaped icon at the bottom left of the query panel.

Paul Shovlar :uk: (BOB member since 2002-09-05)

#4

Thanks for your comments!

For the application I’m working on, the users want to be very much spoon-fed. The report I’m creating is actually replacing an on-line inquiry system, with a front-end that allows a variety of ways to get at their data.

They want to keep that kind of functionality and don’t have any desire to use B.O. they way it probably should be, with dragging and dropping different objects into the way they want to query their data.

To keep it somewhat simple, here’s what I did —
Created the universe with 2 prompts – one for a customer name, another for a customer number. I then created report1 with the filter on customer number with layout x y z. I then duplicated the report, calling the dup report2. For report2, I changed the filter to use the customer name prompt.

The problem I have in doing this, is when I need to make any formatting changes I now have 2 reports to change.

Thanks again!
Anne

Anne Furtado (BOB member since 2002-09-23)

#5

It seems to me you need to “OR” your alternative prompts, see if this thread is helpful

https://bobj-board.org/t/15227

Paul Shovlar :uk: (BOB member since 2002-09-05)

#6

The easiest way to do this if you just want one report is to use the OR instead of AND between the prompts. I hate it but this would get you what you are looking for… :crazy_face:

The users can put spaces or anything they wish in the prompts they do not wish to fill. I am assuming that only one prompt is used at a time.

CAUTION: Your users have to realize that if they enter “US” as country and “Timbuktu” as city they will get data for both rather than no data!!

avaksi :us: (BOB member since 2002-08-22)

#7

Hi,

I would use the OR within the prompts, but there are so many prompts, I need to use mixed OR / AND selections. Even though I used only 2 examples, there are really several ways the users can get at this data, including dates.

For instance, there might be a matchpattern on the customer name AND a date range selection.

Thanks again!
Anne

Anne Furtado (BOB member since 2002-09-23)

#8

Based on the description, a template is probably the way to go. A template is perfect for recreating a report (format) exactly. So I might suggest the following workflow…

  1. Build your basic report with no conditions. Save this, and also save as a template.
  2. Build as many variations of this report as you want, with different query prompts or combinations of conditions.
  3. When a formatting change has to be made, open the original report. Make the change, save it, and save it as a template.
  4. Open each report variation, and apply the template. Your formatting changes should be very easy to propogate in this fashion.

Welcome to Bob! :bob:

Dave

Dave Rathbun :us: (BOB member since 2002-06-06)

#9

Dave,

In that case the objects need to be selected everytime for each report, template will only take care of formatting stuff.

Thanks
Reema

reemagupta (BOB member since 2002-09-18)

#10

Hi,

You can create a “generic” object based on a prompt. Something like this :

decode(@Prompt('Object to Display ?','a',{'Val 1','Val 2','Val 3',...},mono,),'Val 1',@Select(Class1\Object1),'Val 2',@Select(Class2\Object2),'Val 3',@Select(Class3\Object3),...)

This object can be used in the conditions. To use the LOV associated to each ClassN\ObjectN, refresh the LOV associated to your generic object.

In the report, usually, I use the reply to the prompt ‘Object to Display ?’ as column title.

Hope this help !

meyeran (BOB member since 2002-08-15)