Clearing parameter input

Hi everyone,

I have a question that I believe should be simple to answer yet I cannot find the answer anywhere. I am trying to make it possible for my report to clear the input box whenever the report is run or when anything in a dropdown list is selected. The reason why I want this is because my report has a dropdown list that inputs date ranges for "quick" report info. The other option is to manually type in the begin and end date. If anyone could help me out with this I would be very grateful.

Thanks,

Roy

Visual Studio 2005 makes this quite simple. However, you may be able to accomplish this using custom code in BIS, but I'm not sure how.|||

Thanks for the reply but I still don't userstand how it can be done in Visual Studio 2005. What does BIS stand for?

Thanks,

Roy

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Business Intelligence Studio.

Have you developed a front-end for your reports and used dropdownlists in a windows or web application?

Or are you just using a multivalue parameter in business intelligence studio?

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Ah ok thanks. There will be no front-end for the reports because the end-user will access the Reports Server using a link from our company intranet site. Permissions will be given based on department, etc. I am not using a mutlivalue parameter. The report gives financial information (sales, etc) based on the date range. The first dropdown gives you predetermined ranges (yesterday, month to day, etc) and also a "Custom" option. The "Custom" option gives the user the ability to fill in the other two boxes with their desired date range. The problem that lies here is sometimes the end user will select a predetermined range like yesterday. So the dropdown stays on "yesterday". Then they might decide they need to put in a custom date range. They forget to change the dropdown to Custom first. Now when they click "View Report" the end result will be yesterday's information which leads to misinformation because of operator error. I want to prevent this. A couple of ways this can be done is:

1) when any of the predetermined options are selected, the two other fill-in boxes are greyed out. (cant find out how to do this)

2) when clicking a predetermined option, the two fill-in boxes are cleared so there is no confusion (not the best method but can't do no 1 so will stick with this one)

Thanks again,

Roy

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Anyone have any ideas? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

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>>Anyone have any ideas

Um, yes, I do.

If you don't want to develop your own parameter-handling interface, and if the parameters have bearing on one another, the prompts should say so. They need to reflect what your code is doing (presumably ignoring the dates unless "Custom").

So, for example, instead of FromDate and ToDate you can say

FromDate for Custom Range:

ToDate for Custom Range:

... or even more explicit:

FromDate (used for Custom Range only):

ToDate (used for Custom Range only):

... and for your drop down you might also change the prompts in the dropdown.

Yesterday

Month To Date

Custom Range From Date Input

... kind of a pain the way the default interface will arrange your params, and not fool proof, but you are giving the user the information they need to understand what will happen when they make choices.

>L<