OBIEE View Selectors vs Column Selectors

Dennis Hancy

Hello.

Our goal is give the users a choice between displaying actual values or absolute values. The original thought was to create one view for each of these, and then add a view selector so the user can choose which one to see.

However, in our case, we can drill down to a lower level report. The selected value on the first screen needs to be passed to the second screen.

Is that possible? In other words - can the selected value from the view selector on the first screen be passed (as a presentation variable, perhaps) to a lower level screen?

As we looked into this, we learned that a column selector may be another option. We just haven't figured out how these work yet. Given our requirement to pass the selected value between screens, can we use a column selector? If so, can someone point us to an example of how these work?

Thanks!!

Dennis

Christian Berg-0racle

The passing of values is automatic, there's nothing you need to configure apart from having the same attributes which you want filters exist as such in the target analysis.

Dennis Hancy

Thanks.

We've passed values between screen before - but it's always been values from various attributes. Does the value selected from a value selector also get passed automatically? If so, how do we refer to it on the target page and analysis?

Christian Berg-0racle

What exactly do you mean with "value selector"? There are "View Selectors", "Column Selectors" and "Prompts" but nothing that's a "value selector".

Dennis Hancy

Sorry.. that was a typo on my part.

I meant to say View Selector.

Christian Berg-0racle

In the view selector you select just that - a view i.e. a visualization of the data retrieved by the analysis.

When you drill or navigate what gets passed is contextual information like columns and their values. So "Country" = "Germany" for example. And since the "Country" column exists in your originating analysis (independent of the view selector) and exists in your destination analysis, it is being passed as a filter criterion.

Dennis Hancy

Just a quick follow-up on this...

I ended up abandoning the View Selector approach. In its place, I added a variable dashboard prompt and assigned it to a presentation variable.

Then, when the user drills down to the lower level pages, I included a column in my analysis whose formula is a "case" statement. If the value of my presentation variable it "ABS", then I display the absolute value of the amount column. Otherwise, I display the actual value of the amount column.