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Oracle® Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Help
11g Release 1 (11.1.1)
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New Prompt dialog

Use this dialog to define the column, variable, or currency prompt.

For more information, see "Creating a Column Prompt."

This dialog is also displayed as:


Edit Prompt
Edit Prompt: Column dialog
New Prompt: Column dialog

Components Common to Column, Currency, and Variables Prompts


Note:

This section describes the components that are common to column, currency, and variable prompts. Additional components are available for the column and variable prompts. See "Additional Components for Column and Variable Prompts."


Label

Use this field to enter an appropriate label for the prompt. For example, "Select a date range," "Select a currency," or "Select a percentage by which to calculate the region's dollars."

Description

Use this field to enter a short description of the prompt. This description is displayed as tool tip text, which is displayed when the user hovers the mouse over the prompt's label in the dashboard or analysis.

Additional Components for Column and Variable Prompts

Prompt for Column

This field displays for column prompts, only.

Use this field to view information about the column that you selected. You can edit the formula that displays in this field by clicking the Edit Formula button. For more information, see "Edit Column Formula dialog."

Edit Formula

This field displays for column prompts, only.

This button displays for attribute and measure column types, but not for hierarchical columns; however, if you are creating a column or variable prompt and choose to modify the column's formula, you can specify a hierarchical column in the column's formula.

Use this button to display the "Edit Column Formula dialog" where you can modify the column's formula for use with the prompt.

If you added a SQL case statement to the analysis' column instance and you want to use that case statement within the prompt, then you must specify the same SQL case statement in the prompt's column formula.

For example, on the analysis' column, you can use the Edit Formula functionality to create a "Beverage Type" bin to group a long list of beverages into two categories called "Carbonated Beverages" and "Fruit Juices and Non-Carbonated Beverages." When building the prompt, you then add the same bin or SQL case statement to the prompt's column formula. When the prompt is completed and previewed, the "Carbonated Beverages" and "Fruit Juices and Non-Carbonated Beverages" items are displayed in the prompt's value list.

Data Time Zone

Use this field to set the time zone.

Prompt for

This field displays for variable prompts, only.

Use this field to select the type of variable to create (Presentation Variable or Request Variable) and to type a name for the variable. This variable name is the name that you add to the analysis or dashboard where you want the variable prompt's value specified by the user to display.

Included Code Column

This field displays for display columns, only.

Displays the name of the code column that is mapped to the display column.

For more information on display and code columns, see "Understanding the Double Column Feature."

Operator

This field displays for column prompts, only.

Use this list to select the prompt's operator. For more information about each operator, see "Operators."

Note the following items:

User Input

This field displays for column and variable prompts.

Use this list to specify the user interface component where the user selects the prompt values (for example, prompt the user with radio buttons to select only one prompt value or prompt the user with a text box that requires the user to enter one or more specific prompt values). The input option that you select determines the fields that are displayed in the dialog. For a description and example of each user input option type, see "What Types of User Input Options Can I Use With a Column or Variable Prompt?"

User Input Values

This field displays for column and variable prompts.

Use this field to specify which data values you want to display in the user input method that you selected. For example, if you selected the Choice List user input method and the All Column Values option, then the user selects the prompt's data value from a list that contains all of the data values contained in the data source.

Note that for attribute columns and measures column, all choice list values type are available.

The User Input Values options are:

Select Values or Remove selected value buttons

These buttons display for column and variable prompts. These buttons display if you selected Custom Values, Specific Column Values, Members of Groups, or All Column Values and Specific Groups in the User Input Values field.

Use the Select Values button to open the "Select Values dialog" to search for and add values or groups to the Select List. The prompt presents this values list to the user. This functionality is useful when you want to limit the number of user choices to a small, intuitive list. For example, if you chose Radio Buttons as the user input method and created a specific values list of five dates, the prompt presents the user with five radio buttons, one for each date. If you selected Custom Values in the User Input Values field, the Enter Value dialog displays rather than the Select Values dialog, where you enter a custom value.

Use the Remove selected value button to remove the selected value.

SQL Statement

This field displays if you selected SQL Results in the User Input Values field.

Use this field to create or edit a SQL statement. When run, the SQL statement produces a group of values that is displayed in the Select List.

Include "All Choices" choice in the list

This box displays if you selected either the Choice List, List Box, or Radio Buttons user input type.

Use this box to display the "All Choices" option in the value list. Users can select the "All Choices" option to select all of the values in the list.

Limit values by

This box displays if you selected either the Check Box, Choice List, List Box, or Radio Buttons user input type.

Use this box to select an existing prompt column or columns to limit the values that display in the select lists for the prompt column. This type of limitation is also known as a cascading prompt. Oracle suggests that you limit values by selecting multiple specific prompt columns rather than by selecting All Prompts.

Consider the following examples:

Enable user to select multiple values

This box displays if you selected either the Choice List or List Box user input type.

Use this box to allow the user to select multiple prompt values from the list of values. If you selected the Choice List user input option, then the prompt value selection list displays a check box before each prompt value.

If you selected the List Box option, then to select:

If you are creating the prompt on a hierarchical column, then this option is selected and you cannot deselect it. If you are creating a prompt with only one value, then use the "Select Values dialog" to select one value.

Enable user to type values

This box displays if you selected the Choice List user input type.

Use this box to allow the user to choose values from the choice list or place the cursor and type a value into the selection field. For example, select this box when the prompt's value list is lengthy and the user does not want to scroll through or search the list, or the user knows the specific prompt value. This option is useful when the prompt contains non-measure numeric values (for example, a product ID or employee ID) that cannot be easily or quickly located in a list of values.

If this option and the Enable user to select multiple values option are selected, users can enter multiple values (using the semicolon delimiter) into the prompt's selection field.

Require user input

This box displays for all user input types.

Use this box to make the prompt required. When the prompt is required, users cannot click the Go button to execute the prompt query until they have selected a prompt value. When you select this option, an asterisk displays to the left of the prompt label to indicate to the user that the prompt is required.

Slider Values

This field displays for the Slider user input type, only.

Use this field to specify the prompt values and value range to display in the slider. Currently, Within Specific Limits is the only available Slider Values option.

Lower limit

This field displays for the Slider user input type, only.

Use this field to specify the beginning prompt value that is displayed on the left-end of the slider. This prompt value is the lowest value that the user can select.

Upper limit

This field displays for the Slider user input type, only.

Use this field to specify the ending prompt value that is displayed on the right-end of the slider. This prompt value is the highest value that the user can select.

Show Spinbox

This box displays for the Slider user input type, only.

Use this box to display a spinbox where the user can click arrows to select a value. When the user clicks the spinbox's arrows, the slider resets to the same value. Deselect this box to remove the spinbox from the prompt.

Compress Values

This box displays for the Slider user input type, only.

Use this box to remove the zeros from values of 1,000 and over. For example, 1,000 displays as 1K and 1,000,000 displays as 1M. If you select this option and are using a non-English environment, the compressed value label is not translated. The value label is displayed in English (for example, 1K or 1M).

Slider Orientation

This field displays for the Slider user input type, only.

Use this field to specify whether you want the slider to be displayed horizontally or vertically on the prompts page.

Label location

This field displays for the Slider user input type, only.

Use this field to specify where you want the prompt's label to display in relation to the slider. Currently, Left of Slider is the only available Label location option.

Slider size

This field displays for the Slider user input type, only.

Use this field to choose the size of the slider. You can select Small, Medium, or Large.

Default selection

Use this field to specify the prompt value that you want users to see initially. First select one of the following options, then (except for the None option) specify the value in the box that is displayed:

Enable user to select by Code Column

This option displays for display columns, only.

Select this option to add a check box to the prompt that enables the user to specify whether to select prompt values by display values (for example, "Beverages") or by code-display values (for example, "1-Beverages"). This box is automatically labeled with the partial caption of "Select by." If you select this option, then add a label in the Label field that identifies what the user is selecting by.

Label

This field displays for display columns, only.

Use this field to complete the "Select by" label for the check box that enables the user to specify whether to select prompt values by display values (for example, "Beverages") or by code-display values (for example, "1-Beverages"). For example, you might enter "product codes" so that the check box label is "Select by product codes."

User Input Width

This box displays if you selected the Choice List, Text Field, List Box, Check Boxes, or Radio Buttons user input type.

Use this field to specify the width of the prompt's field that displays on the prompts page. This field determines the width of the area where the prompt's member values display and does not include the field's label. Note the following options:

Note that setting the Set width of all prompts to field on the "Edit Page Settings dialog" overwrites what you specify in the User Input Width field. Likewise, specifying preferences for the individual prompt in the User Input Width field deselects the Set width of all prompts to check box in the "Edit Page Settings dialog." For more information, see the help for the ""Edit Page Settings dialog."

User Input Layout

This box displays if you selected the Check Boxes or Radio Buttons user input type.

Use this option button to specify the alignment of the prompt that displays on the prompts page. Select either horizontal or vertical alignment.

Set a variable

Use this field to create a variable that this column prompt is to populate.

Select the type of variable, either Presentation Variable or Request Variable, then, enter a name for the variable. Note if you selected Request Variable, you must use the name of the session variable that you want this request variable to override.


Note:

If you are creating a dashboard prompt for an Oracle BI Publisher report that receives its data from an Oracle BI Server or SQL Server, then you must type "Presentation" in the Variable Name field.


For more information about using variables, see "Using Variables."

Column

This field displays if you selected either All Column Values, Specific Column Values, or Members of Groups from the User Input Values field.

This field displays the name of the column upon which you selected to populate the variable prompt's list of values. This field is read-only. To specify a different column name to display in this field, you must click the Select Column button and browse for and select another column.

Select Column

Use this button to display the "Select Column dialog" where you can browse for and select the column to use to generate the prompt's list of values.