Select Drillthrough Target at runtime?

Question

Select Drillthrough Target at runtime?

Pete Cox

SSChasing Mays

Points: 636
More actions
August 21, 2013 at 6:20 am

#281372

Hi,
Has anyone found a reasonable way to allow a user to drillthrough something like a stacked column series, but allow them to choose which report to drill through to, like a choice between (tabular details of part of a column) vs. (a charted view of the aggregate of that same column).
I seem to remember Cognos (long ago) had an option that allowed developers to specify 2 completely different target reports for the same action. The report consumer was then asked to choose from the available destinations.
Almost like some kind of Wiki-style disambiguation page.
Any bright ideas ?
Pete

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply

Koen Verbeeck SSC Guru Points: 259105 More actions · Answer 1

You could try with an expression on the ReportName of the drillthrough target, but that means you would have to set the parameter when the report is ran, so it's not really interactive.

Just thinking out of the box:

maybe you can refer to an URL, where you implement something yourself to let the user decide which report he wants to see.

Need an answer? No, you need a question
My blog at https://sqlkover.com.
MCSE Business Intelligence - Microsoft Data Platform MVP

Pete Cox SSChasing Mays Points: 636 More actions · Answer 2

Thanks Koen,

I was hoping not to write too much code, but perhaps the URL option is where I'll end up.

One thing about using an expression for the target report name..... is is possible to drive some kind of user interaction from an expression like that? I had a look, but cant find anything close. I wouldn't mind defining identical parameters to both/all candidate target reports and then only using the ones each needed.

Pete

Koen Verbeeck SSC Guru Points: 259105 More actions · Answer 3

The only user interaction with an expression is when you use parameters inside your expression.

Maybe you can define a target report which has a few subreports, and you decide to show which subreport based on the parameters passed.

Need an answer? No, you need a question
My blog at https://sqlkover.com.
MCSE Business Intelligence - Microsoft Data Platform MVP

Pete Cox SSChasing Mays Points: 636 More actions · Answer 4

Letting the target report decide what to display could be a useful approach. Perhaps subreports are not quite the way to go, since all subreport queries get run regardless and the data could get quite large.

Alternatively, I might create an intermediate report that takes the full set of all possible parameters and offers enough text boxes to offer the candidate reports, then try and mix and match on a drillthrough from there.

Or go the "use a URL and do some coding" route.

Fun times 🙂

Thanks

Pete Cox SSChasing Mays Points: 636 More actions · Answer 5

Report Properties | Code

looks promising

Maybe i can get a embedded VisualBasic challenge/response thing to work nicely