Expose column headers only when drill-down show data

Question

Expose column headers only when drill-down show data

James Lastowski

Mr or Mrs. 500

Points: 580
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March 30, 2005 at 6:21 am

#113630

Hi - When using drill-down in table reports some consumer are confused with seeing the child level column label headers when the data is at the higher (collapsed) level. Here is an example: the report has these columns:
State ZIP Code Donor Name Transaction Date Transaction Amt
The report starts at the Top with only the State name and total Transaction Amt
They can drill-down on State and expose the ZIP Codes for that State and see the ZIP Transaction Amt totals
Likewise, they can drill down on ZIP and see the Donor Name and Transaction Total
Lastly, they may drill down on the Donor Name and see the Donor's Transaction dates and Amts
We need to prevent the column labels from showing when the data is not yet available. So at the start we need to see only see State and State Amount data and their column labels.
How do we conceal the column headers until the related data is exposed?
Thx for any help, James

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stevefromOZ SSC-Forever Points: 43646 More actions · Answer 1

I've not tested this, but couldn't you set the visibility of the text boxes tat hold the column titles to be dependant on the same group items that control the visiblity of the secondary grouped data?

Steve.

James Lastowski Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 580 More actions · Answer 2

Thanks for the suggestion. I thought so and tried to implement it using that but it either it won't work or I have not stumbled across the correct syntax or usage. I guess I simply can’t figure out the syntax on the iff clause to test for the other field’s visibility. I tried controlling the text color too but again I am not experienced enough in how to create the iff condition.

It is surprising no one has come across this issue since it is very confusing to some report consumers to see titles with no values.

I've only be working with RS since the beginning of the month and think it is a good tool. I hope someone with more experience, good luck, or better insight into tht product can come up with a solution.

Chutney Old Hand Points: 393 More actions · Answer 3

If you are using drill-down then I presume you are using toggles to open the detailed rows. Try using the same toggle to open the columns so that clicking on the toggle will open (or close) the rows and columns together. (Drill-down also works as Drill-across).

stevefromOZ SSC-Forever Points: 43646 More actions · Answer 4

Exactly what I thought too, but after playing with this a little, it is proving to be a litle more complicated. When yuo have the drill down, you have groupings, when you have groupings, the table header (which is where you typically get the column headings) is above/outside the level of grouping that controls the drill-toggle. When I was doing this I found it wouldn't even compile because of the mix-matched grouping.

Steve.

Chutney Old Hand Points: 393 More actions · Answer 5

Very good point. I was trying to keep it simple but...

A few workarounds:

1. Have separate row and column toggles. The user toggles down and then must toggle across to see all of the information.

2. Drive the drill-down/drill-across by parameters rather than toggles. This is not as efficient because the ReportServer must re-render the report but it avoids the double-toggle issue.

3. Use sub-tables to display the extra rows and columns. The drill-down toggle opens the sub-table which in turn opens the columns

I have built reports using all of the above. It is a bit of an art to work out the best combination.

James Lastowski Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 580 More actions · Answer 6

Yep it is trickier that it appears and... Yikes! Interesting but overly technical for my "simple folk" clients. We don't want to get them into matrix reports for this data. Perhaps if we can determine if the lower levels (children) are expanded (what attribute would that be ".visble" or ???) Then we can do an iff conditional on the text color (black AKA show the label) from the default (white AKA don't show it). This would be a cleaner and less technical solution.

Any ideas on how to implement this?

stevefromOZ SSC-Forever Points: 43646 More actions · Answer 7

I actually tried this (the identifying bit) but couldn't get it to even compile. I believe the property you're looking for is the .Hidden (a boolean), and you *should* be able to get to it via code like Iif(ReportItems!<textboxnamehere>.Hidden, [do something], [do somfin else]) but again, i ran into the scoping issue.

It would be nice if you could reverse this, so based on being able to catch the 'expand' event you could then set the visibility of the column header. Can't quite see how/where to catch this (client side) event.

Steve.

James Lastowski Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 580 More actions · Answer 8

Well, we're seemingly blocked on this for now. We plan on using the new beta version soon and hopefully there are improvements there to resolve this issue. Thanks to you all for your time and thoughts. I'll post back if we ever get a reasonable solutions. - James