Jan 23, 2009 ... In business objects webi reports, drill filters can be used to filter the data
displayed. When a value is selected, it is shown in the drill filter drop ...
Showing Drill Filter Values in a Business Objects Webi Report Author: Date:
Ewan Bowers 23/01/2009
1. Background In business objects webi reports, drill filters can be used to filter the data displayed. When a value is selected, it is shown in the drill filter drop down menu at the top of the report. Below is an example of a webi report with drill filters.
However, when the report is exported to PDF and Excel, the drill filter values are not displayed, so it is not possible to determine what conditions have been applied to the data. A solution to display the values in the report, so that they are also displayed when exported to PDF or Excel is outlined below in section 2. There is a similar process for displaying the values of prompts, and this is also outlined in section 3
2. Solution Webi has an in built function that allows users to display the value of a drill filter in a report. There are 2 methods that can be used to apply this. The first method is the easiest, but is less flexible. The second allows more customization of the information shown.
2.1 Method 1 With the report open in modify mode, select the templates tab from the left panel of the report window. Under Report Elements > Free-Standing Cells > Formula and Text Cells, there is a report element called Drill Filters. Drag this object across and drop it where you want to display the values in the report. The cell will now display the value of a drill filter selected in the report. If no value is selected (eg. "All Values") then the cell will be blank. If multiple drill filters are used in the report, then it will display the values for each, separated by a "-", as shown below.
2.2 Method 2 The cell in the method above uses the formula: =DrillFilters() By entering this formula into a blank cell manually and customizing it, you can display drill filter values with more flexibility. The above report has two drill filters; one for Patient Type Description and one for Clinic Description If you only wanted to display the value for one of the drill filters, you can enter the name of the object into the DrillFilters() formula to display only the filter value for that object. for example: =DrillFilters([Patient Type Description]) Would display: New Outpatient You can also amend the formula to include labeling, for example: ="Patient Type: "+DrillFilters([Patient Type Description]) Would display: Patient Type: New Outpatient Finally, you can add an if statement if you want it to display something other than blank when no value is selected, for example: ="Patient Type: "+if(DrillFilters([Patient Type Description])="";"All"; DrillFilters([Patient Type Description])) Would display: Patient Type: All (when "All Values" is selected).
3. Report Prompts A similar method can be used to display the values entered into prompts when a report is run. The formula to display these is: =UserResponse() However, with =UserResponse(), you must specify which prompt you want to return the value(s) of, even if there is only one prompt in the query. To do this, enter the text that is displayed when you see the prompt, in double quotation marks into the formula. So for a prompt that asks the user to: Select a Financial Year: You would use the formula: =UserResponse("Select a Financial Year:") Which would display: 2007 With prompts, it is possible to select multiple values, so these will be displayed separated by a semi-colon: 2006;2007;2009
