BusinessObjects Board

Sample Record Prompt in Designer and Webi XI

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#1

Hi,

I am working against a Teradata environment. My report requires an optional prompt that allows the user to enter in a sample number of records to return. I have not done this before in any reports and I am curious to see ways to accomplish it.

I am working in Designer XI R2 and Webi XI.

Example:
Type of pass: (optional)
Number is sample records: (optional)

So if the user enters nothing, then they get all rows back.
If they just select the type of pass, then the sample size doesn’t matter.
If they enter the sample size and not the pass, then only the number of rows specified would be returned.
If they fill out both, only the pass type and the number of specified rows will return.

Thanks in advance.

techguy418 (BOB member since 2007-08-30)

#2

At this time there is no feature for optional prompts. The standard work-arounds are covered in the Designer FAQ, since they have to be done at the universe level.

Be aware that Teradata does NOT like the sql generated by these standard workarounds. At my current project we have taken prompts that were “optional” and removed the “or ALL in ALL” logic and seen execution times drop from five minutes to five seconds. So just be prepared for that.

If at all possible, avoid the requirement for optional prompts. Rumors have it that some help is on the way from the application side (meaning Webi).

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